
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 


Chap Copyright No. 


Sheltu\£iUu Or 


/ 


UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 







































































































































































































































































































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THE GYPSY SERIES 


^ . 


GYPSY’S 

SOWING AND REAPING 



ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS 

It 


SJUttlj Cllustrattons 
BY MARY F AIRMAN CLARK 


I 


* c.o vihl Ghr 


NEW YORK 
DODD, MEAD & COMPANY 
1896 


/\UG*1 1896 



\ 


Entered according to Act of Congress, in the Year 1866, 
By Graves & Young 

In the Clerk’s Office for the District Court of Massachusetts. 


Copyright , IS 96, 

By Dodd, Mead and Company. 


5Entbcrsttg ^rcss: 

John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER I. page 

The Nest in the Hay i 

CHAPTER II. 

Gone 18 

CHAPTER III. 

The First Letter 43 

CHAPTER IV. 

The Outline of a Shadow 70 

CHAPTER V. 

The Shadow Deepens 98 

CHAPTER VI. 

The Watch upon the Stairs 123 

CHAPTER VII. 

Something New 139 


VI 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER VIII. page 

Following the Rut 163 

CHAPTER IX. 

Stony Places 183 

CHAPTER X. 

Various Matters 202 

CHAPTER XI. 

A Stamp in the Wrong Corner 225 

CHAPTER XII. 

Quiet Eyes . 238 

CHAPTER XIII. 

The Voice upon the Shore 253 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Troubles Never Come Single 273 

CHAPTER XV. 

Only a Whisper . 293 

CHAPTER XVI. 

The Reaping 306 



®Cha/)+€r I ® 

^oJ^e %/Yest ® ;/? a Me Q ^/f a j r 


YPSY, Gypsy ! ” 

Nobody answered. 

“ Gypsy ! ” 

A social young rooster, thinking 
himself personally addressed, replied 
to the name by a cheerful crow, and the cat, 
roused from her nap in the sunny corner by the 
hogshead, came up purring to rub herself 
against Tom’s boot. Otherwise, the yard was 
quite still ; so was the lane, and he had searched 
the chaise-house thoroughly. Of twenty or 
more places, any one of which Gypsy was as 
likely to be in as in any other, it was by no 


means easy to know which to choose. Tom 
decided on the barn, and pushing open the 
stable door, he walked in, as Tom walked in 
everywhere, — with his hands in his pockets, 
whistling. 

There was a stir of the warm, clover-scented 
air, and a faint rustling somewhere overhead. 

“ Gypsy, is that you ? ” 

“Ye — s. What do you want ? ” 

“Why didn’t you answer a fellow before? 
I ’ve been calling you post hominum memoriam 
“ He might show off his Latin, — so he 
might ! ” interrupted the voice from overhead. 

“Didn’t you hear me?” demanded Tom, 
sublimely ignoring the thrust. Gypsy did not 
answer, and he climbed up into the loft to see 
about it. 

“ Well done ! If you don’t look as much 
like the brown pullet as any other simile that 
presents itself to the vivid imagination ! ” 

Down in the sweet warm hay, among the 
dried clover and buttercups and feathered grass, 
a great hollow was scooped like a nest, and out 


of it rose a round, nut-brown face, with brown 
eyes and ripe red lips, and hair as black as a 
coal. As one climbed up the ladder, that was 
all that could be seen. 

“ Oh, thank you,” said Gypsy, looking up 
carelessly, “ you ’re always complimentary, but 
I ’m afraid you ’re outdoing yourself. The brown 
pullet’s a handsome hen, anyway.” 

“ I really should like to know whether you 
heard me or not,” said Tom, sitting down on 
the hay beside her. Gypsy arched her pretty 
eyebrows. 

“ Can’t you give a fellow a civil answer?” 

“ Certainly ; but I ’m afraid you won’t think 
it ’s very civil after I ’ve given it. Will you have 
it, or won’t you ? ” 

“ I ’ll have it.” 

“Well, then, I — suppose I did hear you. 
I did n’t mean you should know, but ‘ I can’t 
tell a lie, pa, I can’t tell a lie.’ ” 

“ Why did n’t you have the politeness to 
answer, then?” said Tom, with a genuine elder- 
brotherly frown. 


3 


“ It was impolite, I know, but you see I 
wanted to get through.” 

“ Through? ” 

“ Yes. I knew if you came I should n’t do 
a stitch, and I came up here to mend, — don’t 
you tell? ” 

“ No ” 

“Well, I tore my dress, my bran new fall 
delaine, — and the very first morning I ’ve 
had it on, — down the placket, clear way to 
the hem, running after Mrs. Surly’s puppy, 
and the horrid little thing stood and barked 
at me just as if he were glad of it. Then 
you see she does so much mending for 
me.” 

“The puppy?” 

“ Of course.” 

“Oh, Mrs. Surly?” 

“ Exactly. Mother sends the clothes over to 
her every Wednesday night, and brings them 
back in a wheelbarrow Saturdays. I ’m aston- 
ished you didn’t know that without asking. 
Any more remarks?” 


“ Well, not just at present. If I think of any 
more, I ’ll let you know.” 

“Very well; I’ll go on, then. You see 
mother is for ever sewing for me, and so I 
thought it was too bad in me, and I ’d come up 
here and get it all mended without anybody’s 
knowing. Besides, I’m in a terrible hurry to 
go to Sarah Rowe’s. Ow ! — there goes my 
needle ! Move away a little, please, and let me 
hunt.” 

“Well, that’s the first time I ever saw any- 
body seriously set to work to ‘ hunt for a needle 
in a hay-mow.’ If it is n’t just like you ! I 
hope you expect to find it.” 

“ Here it is,” said Gypsy, in triumph, picking 
it out from her boot-lacing, where it had stuck. 
Tom subsided. 

“ There ! ” said Gypsy, after a moment’s 
silence, in which her needle had been flying fast, 
— so fast that I would not undertake to say any- 
thing about the size of the stitches, — “I guess 
that will go. To be sure, it’s all puckers, and I 
don’t know what mother ’d say to sewing it with 


5 


green thread, but it does n’t deserve any better, 
the old thing ! it need n’t have torn anyway. 
Now I ’m going to Sarah’s.” 

“ My company ’s not wanted, then,” said Tom, 
beginning to climb down the ladder. “ I ’ll 
make myself scarce.” 

“ Why, I did n’t mean to send you off. Did 
you want anything particular?” 

“ Oh, nothing, only I felt kind of social. 
You’ll be rid of me soon enough, when I’m 
gone to college.” 

“I don’t want to be rid of you, Tom. I ’d 
love to stop and talk now, only you see Sarah, 
she ’s got a mud-turtle as big as a dinner-plate, 
swimming round in a hogshead, and I promised 
I ’d come over and see it.” 

“ Oh, well, run along.” 

Tom was out of the barn by this time. 

“ Do you care?” called Gypsy, going down 
the ladder as nimbly as a monkey. But Tom 
was out of sight and hearing. 

Gypsy walked slowly out of the yard and up 
the street. She had not gone far before her 


6 


bright face clouded, and she stopped, standing 
irresolute, then turned round and ran back as 
fast as she could go, which was pretty fast. 



She found Tom sitting on the back-door steps, 
whittling and whistling. 

“ Well,” said Gypsy. 

“ Well? ” said Tom. 

“ I ’ve come back.” 


7 


“ So I perceive. 0 

“ I thought I ’d rather see you than Sarah. 
What did you want to talk about? ” 

“ Oh, nothing in particular. You need n’t 
have troubled yourself.” 

Gypsy saw at once that there had been some- 
thing in particular, and that she had thrown 
away the chance of hearing it. She thought, too, 
how soon Tom was going away, and how few 
more talks they should have together. She felt 
sorry and vexed ; but vexed with herself only. 

Tom whittled his pine stick to a point, and 
looked out of the corners of his eyes at her as 
she sat on the step beside him, her face half 
turned away, her merry lips saddened a little. 
After his genuine boy’s fashion, Tom was not 
quite ready to yield his point, and his pride with 
it. Whatever he had meant to say, he preferred 
that Gypsy should tease for it ; or come at it by 
some extra touch of humility. Gypsy did not 
see the sidelong look, and no one could have 
inferred from Tom’s cool, obstinate silence, and 
the remarkably absorbed manner with which he 


8 


was devoting himself to his whittling, that he 
really appreciated the little sacrifice that she had 
made in coming back to talk with him; that he 
was thinking of just that and nothing else; that 
it had pleased and surprised him. You remem- 
ber the old Bible story of the seed dropped into 
good ground? Just such a seed was that little 
sacrifice, the first of many others with which 
this year, just now begun, should be filled ; the 
forerunner of much toilsome planting and weary- 
ing watch, — the promise of a golden harvest. 
Both brother and sister had in that moment, 
when they were sitting there in silence, a vague, 
half-conscious thought like this; and both the 
thought, and the circumstance which led to it, 
were of more importance to them than either 
supposed. 

“Tom,” said Gypsy, presently, “ I wish you ’d 
come down to the Basin and take a row.” 

“ I don’t know as I care much about it. 
Better go see your turtle.” 

“ I don’t want to go and see the turtle. 
Please, Tom, do.” 

9 


It went very much against the grain for Gypsy 
to tease. Tom knew that she never did it 
without some unusual object in view, and he 
understood what the object was in this case. 
So, throwing away his pine stick, he said, with 
somewhat less of his lordly style, — 

“ Well, I don’t care if I do. Come along.” 
Gypsy came along with a brighter face. 

The lane was looking somewhat seared and 
brown in the late August sun ; but the hazel- 
nuts were ripe on the long row of bushes that 
grew by the wall, so that one could pick and 
eat as one walked ; then the sunlight was cool, 
and the wind was sweet and strong, — so that, 
on the whole, the half-mile walk to the pond 
was quite as pleasant as in the earlier summer. 
Upon the water it was much more comfortable 
than it would be under a burning July sun. 

Tom and Gypsy took each an oar, and 
pushed off into the shade of the Kleiner Berg. 
Then they let the Dipper float idly back and 
forth at the foot of the mountain, framed in by 
shadow and coolness and stillness. 


“ I wish you ’d tell me what you were going 
to say,” said Gypsy, leaning over the side of 
the boat to let her hand fall in the water. 

“ Oh, nonsense ! let that go. I was n’t going 
to say anything, and if I was, I ’ve forgotten it 
now. See here, do you know I go week after 
next? ” 

“ Week after next ! So soon ! Why, I ’d 
forgotten.” 

“Week after next Monday, at six A. M., 
ma’am.” 

“Tom, what do you suppose I ’m going to do 
without you? ” 

“ Mend your dresses and run after puppies.” 

“ No, but,” said Gypsy, laughing in spite of 
herself, “ I mean really. I shall miss you 
terribly, Tom.” 

“ I ’ll risk it.” 

“Thom-as Breynton!” 

She pulled her hand up suddenly out of the 
water, and jumped into his lap, throwing both 
her arms around his neck, her soft brown eyes 
looking into his. 


“Tom, don’t you know I shall miss you? 
Don’t you know I love you better than anything 
on this earth but mother? And I have n't been 
away from you more than a fortnight in all my 
life. Oh, Tom ! ” 

“You’ll tip the boat over,” said undemon- 
strative Tom. Nevertheless, he kissed her. 

“ I do believe you ’re glad to go,” said Gypsy, 
putting up her red lips reproachfully. 

“ Yale College is a jolly place. Swe-de-le- 
we-tchu-hi-ra-sa ! ” sang Tom. “ Can’t say I ’m 
sorry. I expect to have a gay time. Swe-de- 
le-we-dum -bum! ” 

“ I believe it ’s you that are glad to get rid of 
me, Tom.” 

“ Oh, no,” said Tom, coolly, “ not at all ; I ’ve 
no desire to get rid of you. You do very well 
for a girl.” 

“Well,” said Gypsy, half mollified, for this 
was Tom’s way of saying how much he loved 
her, “ anyway, I don’t think you ought to be 
glad to go.” 

Tom snapped a hazel-nut into the water, took 


12 


off his cap, put it on, and then said, his manner 
suddenly changing, — 

“ I say, Gyp, it ’s rather queer work, a chap’s 
ending everything up so all at once, and start- 
ing out fresh.” 

“ Ending everything up? ” 

“The old high-school days, — there were a 
jolly set of boys there, Gypsy, no mistake, — 
and home and mother and all together.” 

“Yes,” said Gypsy, musingly, “it seems as 
if you needed something to start on , doesn’t 
it?” 

“ What do you mean? ” 

“Why, I don’t know exactly; something to 
make you know what to do and not make mis- 
takes.” 

“ I don’t believe you know what you ’re talk- 
ing about,” said Tom. But Gypsy did know 
very well. She had a thought which it was 
hard for her to express, and which Tom’s manner 
of receiving it stopped short. But she did not 
forget it ; it came up another time. 

“ Let ’s go ashore ; I ’m tired of this,” said 


Tom, suddenly. Gypsy took her oar, and they 
rowed ashore in silence. 

“ Gypsy ! ” said Tom, when they had walked 
a little way. 

“ Tom ! ” 

‘‘How much do you suppose father’s going 
to put me on a year?” 

Gypsy felt at once that she had come to the 
root of matters; this was what Tom had come 
out into the barn to talk about. 

“ I don’t know, I ’m sure. How much? ” 

“Only six hundred.” 

“ Only six hundred ! Why, Tom, I think 
that’s ever so much.” 

“That’s because you ’re a girl,” said Tom, 
with his superior smile, “ and that ’s all you 
know.” 

“ Why, if I had six hundred dollars ! ” 
began Gypsy. But Tom interrupted. 

“ I ’d as lief be put on rations and kept in a 
guard-house, while I ’m about it. I call it 
mean.” 

“ Mean ! Why, Tom, father would n’t be 


mean for anything ! He ’ll give you every cent 
he can afford, and you know it. Why, Tom ! ” 
“Well,” said Tom, rather abashed by the 
flash in Gypsy’s eyes, “ I did n’t mean exactly 
that, I suppose. I guess he means to do about 
right by me ; but I call it pretty small potatoes. 
Why, Gypsy, there are fellows there who 
grumble and swear at being cut off with two 
thousand, Frank Rowe says.” 

“ But you can’t do everything the other boys 
do,” said Gypsy ; “ some of them are a great 
deal richer than you, you know. Besides, I 
don’t see how you could use more than six hun- 
dred dollars, if you tried to. If I could get a 
hundred, I should n’t know how to spend it.” 

“ My dear child,” said Tom, patronisingly, 
“ you cost father three hundred a year, if you 
cost him a cent.” 

“ Three hundred ? Oh, I don’t believe it ! ” 
“ You do, every bit of it. In the first place, 
there ’s your board is n’t a copper short of a hun- 
dred and fifty ; then you don’t get your shoes, 
and dresses, and alpacas, and bonnets, and feath- 


*5 


ers, and nonsense, and things, under a hundred 
more ; then — oh, school-books, and dentists’ 
bills, and windows you break, and plates you 
smash, and lamp-chimneys, and nobody knows 
what not, — you can put it up as much higher 
as you choose.” 

“ How funny ! ” said Gypsy. “ I did n’t sup- 
pose it was more than seventy-five dollars.” 

“ Of course you did n ’t. Girls never know 
anything about business ; give them a bank bill 
and an account book, and they ’re just like fish 
out of water. So you see, what with board, 
clothes, tuition, and various other little necessa- 
ries of life, I could make way with six hun- 
dred.” 

“ But they would n’t take it all ? ” 

“Then there are the taxes, — Sigma Eps., 
and all, my dear.” 

“But taxes and Sarah Eps, — would they 
take it all?” 

“ Well, a fellow wants something to get 
drunk on.” 


i6 


“ Oh, Tom ! ” 


“Well, for sprees — gales — good times — 
anything you call it.” 

“ But father thinks it’s enough, does n’t he? ” 

“ I suppose so ; ye-es.” 

“ He must know. I don’t exactly under- 
stand,” said Gypsy, slowly. 

They had reached the house by this time, 
and she passed on ahead of him and went up- 
stairs with a Sober face. She was puzzled and 
a little troubled by this talk with Tom. 


17 



HE twilight was falling into a 
pleasant room, — a very pleas- 
ant room ; there were pictures 
upon the walls, and flowers 
and knick-knacks upon the mantel, and 
books upon the shelves ; there were bright 
curtains at the windows, and bright flowers upon 
the carpet, and bright figures upon the paper- 
ing; there was also — a little — dust upon the 
table; but then, that was an old story, and one 
became used to it. The window was open, and 
beyond it hung a sky of flame, golden and 


ruddy and quivering, deepening and paling, 
shut in with low gray clouds. By this window 
sat the pleasantest thing in the room, and that 
was Gypsy; her figure and face in bold relief 
against the west, her head bent, her bright 
black hair falling against her cheeks. She 
looked flushed and excited and tired ; she held 
some bit of fancy work in her hands, on which 
she was sewing very fast, straining her eyes to 
catch the last of the lingering light ; scraps of 
ribbon and silk and tinsel were scattered about 
her on the floor. It was evident that something 
very mysterious and important was going on ; 
for her door was locked, and nobody was 
allowed to come in. 

Somebody thought he ought to come in, 
though, and that was Winnie. This young 
gentleman having a constitutional inability to 
comprehend why any privilege, anywhere, 
under any circumstances, should be denied to 
him by anybody, stamped up-stairs, and ham- 
mered on the door, and demanded entrance. 


“ Can’t come in. 


“ Yes, I can come in, too. I ’m five years 
old.” 

“ I can’t help it if you are. I ’m busy. Go 
away.” 

(Thump, thump, thump!) 

“ Winnie, stop making such a noise, and go 
downstairs ! ” 

“I want (thump, thump!) to come in” 
(thump !) 

“No you can’t; and when I say so, I mean 
it. Run away, like a good boy.” 

“You don’t (bang!) mean it neither, and I 
ain’t goin’ to run away (hammer !) to be a good 
(bang!) boy.” 

No answer. Thump ! hammer ! bang ! thump ! 
Then the enemy changed tactics. 

“ I say, Gypsy, Delia Guest wants you.” 

“ Indeed ! ” 

“ Yes, she does, and I was a-goin’ to tell you 
so to the beginning only it — well, it gives me 
a sore throat to holler through the key-hole. 
She wants to see you like everything.” 

“ I don’t believe it.” But there was a rustle 


20 




as if Gypsy had dropped her work and were 
becoming interested. 

“ Well, she does, ’n she says she ’s got the 
funniest thing to tell you. Let me come 
(thump!) in.” 


21 


“ Oh, Delia always thinks she has something 
funny to say. I don’t believe this is anything. 
Tell her I ’m too busy to come.” 

“ Yes it is anything too. She says it ’s some- 
thing or nuther ’bout George Holman driving 
tack-nails into Mr. Guernsey’s chair. I want to 
come in ! ” 

“ Tack-nails into Mr. Guernsey’s chair ! — 
why, I wonder — no, I can’t, though. I can’t 
go, Winnie. Tell her I ’ll hear about it to- 
morrow. I ’m doing something for Tom now, 
and I can’t leave it. Be a good little boy and 
go away and let me finish.” 

“Tom — Tom — Tom! It’s nothing but 
Tom, all the time ! ” called vanquished Winnie, 
through the key-hole. “ Anyways, I see what 
you ’re doin’ — so ! ” 

“ What?” 

“You’re makin’ a skating-cap out of green 
ribbing. I ’m going to tell him.” 

“ Do, dear. Run right along quick. Be 
sure you get it right.” And Winnie stamped 
downstairs in good faith. 


22 


It was very much as Winnie had said, — 
“ nothing but Tom all the time.” It is a great 
day when the first boy goes to college, and Tom 
suddenly found himself of unheard-of and very 
agreeable importance in the eyes of all the 
family. His father must be so busy and worried 
over his fitting-out, — afraid he had given the 
boy too much money ; then afraid he had not 
given him enough; wishing he had more for 
him ; wishing he were a rich man like the chil- 
dren’s Uncle George; afraid Tom would never 
keep his accounts straight ; half afraid to trust 
him ; anxious to teach him properly ; wonder- 
ing if he would be ruined by college life like 
young Rowe ; anxious, too, to arrange all his 
plans pleasantly for him; bringing up nobody 
knew how many ledgers and diaries, pens and 
ink-bottles, and specimens of paper, from the 
store, that Tom might take his choice ; changing 
any and every arrangement at Tom’s suggestion, 
a dozen times a day; spoiling him by indulgence 
one minute, and worrying him by anxiety the 
next; behaving, generally, very much like 


23 


Mr. Breynton. Tom was used to his father, 
and, though often worried out of good temper 
by his nervous peculiarities and particularities, 
yet he undoubtedly loved him, and loved him 
more than ever in these last days of home-life. 
He would have been a very ungrateful boy if he 
had not. 

As for his mother, who could tell what there 
was that she did not do? For weeks she had 
scarcely been seen without her thimble. No 
one but herself knew exactly how much sewing 
she had done. So many shirts to be cut, 
button-holes to make, wrist-bands to stitch ; so 
much mending and making over; so much 
planning and contriving to make a little go a 
great way ; so much care to sponge up old coats 
and re-bind old vests, that might save the new a 
little, and yet never make the boy ashamed of 
them. Such pies and doughnuts, such cookies 
and stray bunches of grapes, and mellow, golden 
pears, as she had collected on the pantry shelf, 
to adorn the table during Tom’s “ last days,” or 
to tuck into corners of his trunk. Such scraps 


24 


of gentle lessons about this strange life into 
which he was going, as she gave him sometimes 
when they sat together in the twilight; such 
soft kisses as fell on his forehead when she said 
good-night at last, — these were best of all; 
and so Tom thought, though he never said so. 
Was there ever a boy of seventeen who did? 

Neither was Winnie by any means inactive. 
For ten days before Tom went, had he not 
spasmodic attacks of “ popping corn for Tom, 
sir, and you might just let him alone, sir?” 
And did he not collect just twenty-five corns, of 
which twenty were burnt, and three had never 
“ popped ” at all, tie them up in an old lace 
bag, and carry them in his pocket morning, 
noon, and night, to say nothing of sleeping 
with them under his pillow? And is it not 
recorded that the bag burst, and the contents 
one by one grew small by degrees and beauti- 
fully less, but that Winnie did n’t mind that in 
the least ; how he finally pinned it with a rusty 
pin on the cleanest collar he could find in the 
trunk, and how he believes to this day that Tom 


25 


ate every one of those corns, with a faith that 
amounts to sublimity? 

Even Patty must contribute her mite, and, 
having a vague idea that a collegian was always 
glad of an addition to his library, what should 
she do but purchase a Biography of the Blessed 
Mary, profusely illustrated in gamboge and 
vermilion, and hope “ Misther Tom would 
take it kindly, and be a good boy, poor fellow ! ” 

But to no one in the family was Tom’s going 
away just what it was to Gypsy. Even his 
mother could not miss him as she should. 
Tom was very much to her. Since they were 
little children it had been just so. They had 
rolled hoop, and played marbles, and played 
horse, and baked mud-pies together; as they 
grew older, no boating, riding, skating, and 
base-ball were quite complete unless they could 
share them together. Tom was very proud of 
Gypsy, — “she didn’t scream or faint; and if 
he had any particular abhorrence it was a 
screaming, fainting girl. She could handle her 
oar very well, really very well, — under his 


26 


teaching. She was always on hand for any 
fun, and never spoiled things by ‘ being ner- 
vous.’ Besides, she mended a fellow’s gloves 
without scolding, and if you put her in a parlour 
she was as much of a lady as anybody.” 

Gypsy was very proud of Tom. “ Tom was 
so tall. Tom was handsome. All the girls 
liked Tom. Tom was so generous, too, and 
good, and let her go about with him. Tom 
never scolded. Make fun of her? Oh, yes, 
he did that, but she did n’t care ; she should 
miss that as much as anything. To have Tom 
gone, — gone hour after hour, day in and day 
out, week upon week, — why, it seemed like 
cutting a piece of her life right out.” 

Some such thought as this was in her mind as 
she sat alone in the twilight which had gathered 
and deepened, her work lying idly in her lap, — 
it was quite too dark to sew now, — and her 
eyes looking sadly off into the dying west. In 
the midst of the thought there came a great 
noise, — a banging and pounding and scraping 
on the garret floor ; then a banging and pound- 


27 


mg and scraping and jouncing and bouncing 
down the stairs. Gypsy jumped up, wonder- 
ing what had happened, and opened the door to 
see. A huge brown trunk, and Tom behind it. 

“ Oh, Tom : ” 

“ Oh, Gypsy ! ” 

“ Not the trunk, so soon?” 

“Yes, the trunk, so soon. Going to begin 
to pack to-morrow morning; so I thought I’d 
have her on hand, as I had n’t anything else to 
do this particular minute.” 

“ Pack to-morrow ! ” 

“ Could n’t pack Sunday very well. Don’t 
you remember what the catechism says about 
it?” 

“ But it seems so — so — ” 

“ So what? ” 

“So — why, so exactly as if you were 
going off.” 

Tom sat down on the trunk to fan himself 
with his hat and laugh. Gypsy did not join in 
the laugh; she slipped away, and when Tom 
had carried the trunk down, and dusted it out 


28 


(with a clean handkerchief), and put in his 
blacking-box on top of his shirt, “ just to see 
how things were going to look,” he missed 
her. After a long and fruitless hunt, he went 
up garret. 

“ Gypsy, are you here? ” 

Something stirred faintly in an old trunk that 
stood under the eaves, and there sat Gypsy all 
in a heap, with something very suspiciously 
bright in both eyes. Tom stared. 

44 If you could inform the inquiring mind 
what you are supposed to be doing?” 

“ I believe — I came up to — cry,” said 
Gypsy. 

“ My dear, I would not be such a goose.” 

“ On the whole, I don’t think I will,” said 
Gypsy, and jumped out of the trunk, rubbing 
both fists into her eyes. 

As they went past her room — 

“What were you locked up so long for to 
night?” asked Tom. 

“ Oh, something. I ’ll let you know — let me 
see — Sunday night, I guess.” 


29 


“ You need n’t bother yourself so much about 
me,” said Tom, looking a little surprised. 
“ You ’re always doing something. I should 
like to know how many shirts you helped 
mother make. Have n’t seen you for three 
weeks but that you ’ve had your fist stuck into 
one of my stockings, darning it.” 

“The fist? Well, you needn’t talk about it, 
Tom. I like to do things for you.” 

Tom walked off whistling. But Tom looked 
pleased. 

The next day came the packing, and this was, 
as packings always are, rather doleful work for 
everybody. Poor Gypsy thought it was a little 
more than she could stand. 

“ Oh, Tom, how bare the closet looks, — 
Where did I put your brown woollen stockings? 
— and there ’s the table with the cloth off, just 
as if you ’d really gone ! ” 

“ Here ’s your box of paper collars — Oh, 
what will you do without anybody to make you 
new neck-ties ; you always did wear them out so 
fast! Here’s your Virgil. Don’t want it? 


3 ° 



I 

















• > 



















Do you remember how you used to sit up in 
the hay and read me stories out of it? We 
sha’n’t do that any more ! ” 

“ Oh, Tom, what shall I do nights when I 
come home from school, and you’re not here? 
— Here’s your little clothes-brush — and when 
I go boating — Mother, did you put that 
cologne-bottle down in the corner? — and when 
I come into your room and sit down and look — 
Oh, Tom ! ” 

This was rather forlorn work for Tom, and at 
last he broke out : — 

“ I say, Gyp, you ’ll make a fellow homesick 
before his time. Say something sort of gay 
and festive, can’t you ? ” 

Gypsy’s face flushed as she bent over to wrap 
up a picture and put it in the trunk. Her good 
sense told her that she had been doing a 
thoughtless thing. Her good heart taught her 
how to bring back the old merry Gypsy at a 
moment’s notice. Tom heard no more sighs. 

“ I ’m glad your last night is Sabbath night,” 
said his mother, when it came. 


3 


33 


“ I wonder what ’s the reason people always 
love each other more Sunday nights,” said Gypsy, 
pushing her cricket a little nearer to Tom. 
“ It ’s funny, is n’t it? ” 

“It’s Tom’s last night,” said Winnie to 
Patty, “ and you can just give me some of that 
rharboob preserve. Mother ’s in the parlour. I 
had two flabjacks for supper. Don’t you wish 
Tom would go off to college every night? ” 

“ Did you put your wallet in your inside vest 
pocket, Tom, as I advised?” asked Mr. Breyn- 
ton several times in the pauses of the evening. 
And the last time he asked to see it, and slipped 
in an extra five-dollar bill. 

The singing, and the quiet talk, and the 
hymns they sang, and most of all his father’s 
prayer, made Tom very still. Towards the end 
of the evening he slipped away for a few min- 
utes, and Gypsy followed him. She found him 
out on the doorsteps, with his hat pushed down 
over his forehead. 

“Want me, Tom?” 

“ Yes, sit down.” 

34 


She sat down beside him, and putting up her 
hand on his shoulder, began to stroke him in a 
comical, demure way, very much as she would 
a kitten, — Gypsy never did things exactly like 
other people. But Tom liked it. 

“Homesick, Tom?” 

“ No,” growled Tom, pushing his hat savagely 
over his eyes. 

“ Not a bit, dear? ” 

The hat went nearly down to his chin. 
“Homesick before I’m out of the house? 
What nonsense you talk, Gypsy ! ” 

Tom got up and strode severely up and down 
the yard several times. Then he came back 
and seemed to feel better. 

“ I wonder if you ’ll ever think about us Sun- 
day nights,” said Gypsy, indiscreetly. 

Tom began to cough. It was some time 
before he thought it necessary to make any 
reply. When he did, he said : — 

“ My dear Gypsy, you don’t understand 
about these things. You are a girl. FelloWs 
at college have plenty to think of; but then I 


35 


don’t expect to — forget you exactly — no.” 
And the wonderful part of it was that Tom had 
to get up and walk down the yard again. 

“ I hope you won’t get hazed,” said Gypsy, 
presently. Tom’s young eyes flashed. 

“ I should like to see them try it, that ’s all ! 
I ’d shoot the first man that touched me. The 
only thing is, father won’t let me have a re- 
volver, which I think is rough on the Trojans.” 

“ Can’t he afford it?” 

“ Oh, I guess so. But he ’s afraid I should 
shoot myself, or something, I don’t know what. 
As if I were n’t old enough to take care of my- 
self! ” 

“ I hope you ’ll have a nice time,” said Gypsy, 
thinking best to change the subject. 

“ Of course I shall ; a regular jolly. I 
have n’t looked forward to college all my life 
for nothing. I mean to get all the fun I can 
out of it.” 

“ How splendid it ’ll be ! I wish I could go. 
But then you go to study, you know, father 
says, and mother too.” 


36 


“ Oh, study, yes, of course,” said Tom, care- 
lessly ; “ but I mean to have a good time any- 
way .” 

Gypsy looked a little troubled. She knew 
how Tom felt, and she was so sure that she 
should feel exactly the same way if she were in 
his place, that she had not the conscience to 
scold him ; at the same time, she doubted if he 
were quite right about it. She had a dim idea 
that when people went to college “just for 
fun,” they did not come out of it quite as good 
as they went in; a flitting thought of Francis 
Rowe ; a shudder at the bare possibility that her 
brother should ever be like Sarah’s. This may 
have had something to do with her answer ; for 
she said, speaking low and earnestly, — 

“ Tom, do you remember my saying, out in 
the boat, that I wished you had something to 
start on? ” 

“ I guess so.” 

“ Well, I do wish just that. I can’t explain, 
— I never can explain things, you know, Tom; 
but I ’ve got an idea there somewhere, now 


37 


really.” This with a curious, piquant look, half 
laughing, half sober. Tom saw the sober part 
of it, and answered accordingly. 

“ I suppose you mean what people call prin- 
ciple, only you don’t know what you ’re driving 
at. You don’t think I ’m such a horrible sinner, 
do you, Gypsy? ” 

“ No, Tom, — why, no ! ” 

“Well, I guess I’m about as good as most 
fellows, am I not?” 

“ Better ! ” said Gypsy, vehemently ; “ ever 
so much better. Why, I don’t know any other 
boy in Yorkbury half as good as you ! ” 

“ Well, then, I guess you need n’t trouble 
about me,” said Tom. Gypsy looked puzzled 
and made no reply. Presently she pulled some- 
thing out of her pocket. 

“ Tom, dear ! ” 

Tom looked up and saw a broad blue ribbon 
studded at each end with heavy silver crosses ; 
in the centre a strip of silver card-board on 
which was the one word “Gypsy” sewed in 

Gypsy’s own bright hair. 

38 


“ I don’t know that you 'll care anything 
about it, but it was all I could make that was 
all my own. I tried a lot of things, and spoilt 
them. That ’s my hair, and if you see any little 
frizzled ends, you need n’t look, — such a time 
as I had with them, and they would keep stick- 
ing out ! ” 

“ That’s prime,” said Tom, turning it about 
in his fingers as if he were hunting for a handle 
to take hold by. “ What is it, — a neck-tie? ” 

‘‘Neck-tie! Tom Breynton ! Don’t you 
know book-marks when you see them?” 

“Oh, a book-mark, is it? Very good. 
Thanks are due. Where shall I put it, in my 
Homer or Latin Prose?” 

“It’s for — your Bible,” said Gypsy, hesi- 
tating. She wanted to add, “ And if you 
would only please to read it every night, Tom.” 
But she did not. Can you guess why, girls? 
Because she could not ask of him what she did 
not do herself? Exactly. I wonder if you 
think she felt just then a little sorry — or 
not ! 


39 


What she did not say, I am inclined to think 
that his mother did ; for after he had gone to his 
room, they had a long talk together, and when 
it was over, and Tom was left to himself, he hid 
his head under the bed-clothes and was still a 
marvellously long time. 

The cold gray light of Monday morning 
woke Gypsy from a dream that President 
Woolsey had expelled Tom from college for not 
reading the Bible. She started up to find that 
it was a quarter-past five, and Tom was already 
up and eating his breakfast. 

How short that breakfast seemed ; how 
strange the early light; how odd the merry 
singing of the birds ! Gypsy wondered if they 
did not know that Tom was going, and what 
they could possibly find to be so happy about. 
Going, really going: it seemed like part of 
her night’s dream; she sat watching Tom’s face, 
his merry lips and faint moustache, his hand- 
some eyes and curling hair, just as one would 
look at a picture that one was going to burn up. 
Half laughing, half crying, she packed up his 


4 o 


luncheon, and stuffed his pockets with golden 
pears, and jumped on his trunks while he 
strapped them down, and listened to the coach 
rumbling up, and then she ran out into the yard 
and turned her back to everybody. 

“Good-bye, mother. Yes, my money’s all 
right, father. Here, Winnie, give us a kiss, 
sir. Patty, you there? Good-bye to you all. 
I ’ll write as soon as I get there. The small 
trunk, John, in the entry — all right! Now, 
Gypsy, Gypsy ! Where is the child ? ” 

Her arms were round his neck, and her head 
was on his shoulder; she followed him out to 
the gate, kissing and clinging to him, quite de- 
termined not to cry, and making up by the 
means a series of horrible faces. 

“Oh, Tom, what shall I do without you? 
what shall I do ? ” 

“ Shake Winnie and break lamp-chimneys,” 
began Tom, after his usual style, but choked 
and stopped short. 

“I don’t know what a fellow’s going to do 
without you, Gypsy,” — and giving her a great 


4 ’ 


hug, he jumped on the box with John, and 
never looked back. 

Gypsy watched the coach rumble away, grow 
dim in the clouds of dust, grow small, grow 
less, become a speck, vanish utterly. Then she 
went into Tom’s desolate room, bare of its 
familiar pictures, books, and clothes, strange 
and cold for want of the merry eyes, the ringing 
laugh, the eager step that had belonged to it 
and been a part of it since the boy was a baby. 
She locked the door, sat down on a heap of old 
newspapers in the middle of the floor, and did 
what Gypsy very seldom did, — cried as hard 
as she could cry. 



OM took two days to reach New 
Haven, stopping over Monday 
night at an uncle’s in Spring- 

field. On Tuesday night at 

seven o’clock he was sitting in his room 

alone, feeling, to tell the truth, — well, we 

won’t say homesick, but something very much 
like it. His chum was gone out, though that 
was no great loss, for the boy was a com- 
parative stranger to him ; they had seen each 
other for the first time when they came to be 
examined in the summer, and had engaged 
rooms together because it happened to be con- 


venient; Hall took, as every one did, a fancy 
to Tom at first sight, and both being tired out 
with tramping after boarding-places, they had 
met in Elm Street, found just such rooms as 
they wanted, and were glad enough to unite 
their fortunes for the sake of getting them. 

Tom had reached New Haven in the after- 
noon, unpacked his trunks, put away his clothes 
and books, hung his pictures, bargained with 
his landlady for the luxury of a chair with four 
legs (there being none in the room possessed 
of more than two or three), gone to supper at 
his club and come home again ; he had read a 
newspaper and dusted off his table, arranged 
and re-arranged his books, eaten some of his 
mother’s pears, looked his photograph album 
through three times from beginning to end, 
rather wished he could look into the windows at 
home and see what they were all doing, and 
now he was tipped back in his chair, — the 
four-legged one, — against the wall, wishing 
that he knew what to do next, and that it would 
not have such a way of growing dark early. 


For some reason, — whether there could have 
been any homesickness about it or not we will 
not undertake to decide, — the solitude and the 
gathering twilight grew at last intolerable. He 
brought his chair down with a jerk, tossed on 
his cap, and started out for a walk. He strolled 
along past the colleges, and under the elms, 
hanging somewhat yellow and sere now in their 
tossing, netted arches ; tried to look at the 
Sophomores as if he thought them no better 
than himself, did not succeed very well, wished 
he were through Freshman year, and finally, by 
way of something to do, decided to run down 
to the office. Not that there would be anything 
there for him, — of course there was no chance 
of that, though he wished there were, sadly 
enough ; but he would go down just for the fun 
of the thing. So he went, and carelessly ran 
his eye over the list of advertised letters, through 
the A’s and B’s, and was just turning away 
when, lo and behold ! — “ Breynton, Thomas.” 

“Not from home so soon, surely,” thought 
Tom. But it was from home, directed in 


45 


Gypsy’s hand, — and the hand, by the way, 
was very much like Gypsy, sharp and decided, 
and adorned with various little piquant flour- 
ishes, but with a remarkable tendency to run 
over the line and under the line, and everywhere 
but on the line, and not entirely guiltless of blots, 
— to Thomas Breynton, Esq., Freshman, Yale 
College, New Haven, Conn., U. S. A., North 
America, Western Hemisphere.” 

“ The rogue ! ” said Tom, between his teeth, 
as he took it from the hand of the laughing 
clerk; “ I guess she ’ll get her pay for this.” 

Hall met him on the steps as he passed out 
tearing open the envelope in a great hurry. 

“ I say, Breynton, hilloa ! That you? Come 
over to the Tontine with a fellow.” 

The Tontine was no place for Tom, and he 
knew it. Whether he would have preferred it 
to his lonely room and the dreary gathering twi- 
light, if it had not been for that letter, I cannot 
say. But at any rate, Hall had this for an 
answer : — 

“ No, thank you. I have something else to 


46 


do. Don’t you wish you had a sister to write 
to you the day you leave, sir?” 

“ Don’t know but I do,” said Hall, looking on 
rather wistfully. Tom walked off radiant. 

The dreary twilight was dreary no longer; 
the dark and lonely rooms seemed all at once 
like home. He lighted his lamp, tipped back 
his chair, and read as fast as most college boys 
read their first letter from home, I fancy : — 

Monday, September the something or other , 

One o’clock p. m., in my room, on the bed. 

Best beloved of Thomases, — Here you ’ve 
been gone only seven hours, and I have so much 
to say I can’t begin to say it and it is n’t of any 
use and I don’t know what I ’ll do when you ’ve 
been gone a week only I ’ve asked father to 
bring me up a ream of paper from the store 
because I know I shall use as much as that 
before you get home. 

Oh, dear ! I have n’t put in a scrap of punctu- 
ation in that long sentence, only one funny little 
comma, that looks exactly like a pol — polly — 
how do you spell polliwog? — at the beginning; 


47 


and I never could correct it in the world, for I 
should n’t have a sign of an idea what belonged 
where. I’m going to put in a lot; of semi- 
colons ; along here to ; make up ; 

What do you suppose? — Miss Cardrew asked 
Fanny French to-day what a semicolon was, 
and she said she believed it was a place where 
ministers went to school. Did you ever? I 
laughed till I choked, and was just as red in the 
beet as a face — I mean — well, you change it 
round right yourself ; I can’t stop. Then Miss 
Cardrew told me I ’d laughed enough, and that 
made me laugh all the harder, and Delia Guest, 
she went into a coniption, — you know she 
always does when anything happens, anyway, — 
and we had the greatest time you ever knew. 

But, then, this is n’t the beginning, and I meant 
to commence there. I always do jump at things 
so. 

You see, after you ’d gone, I just went into 
your room and — don’t you tell, will you ? but I 
did — I cried like a little goose. You’d better 
believe your table looked homesick enough, and 


48 



your closet with nothing but your linen coat 
hanging up. I banged the door to, I got so 
mad looking at it. 

Ow ! look at that blot. I was only just shak- 
ing my pen round a little to get off some of the 


4 


49 


ink. I never ! if it has n’t gone all over the bed- 
quilt ! I got up here to write because it ’s easier, 
and then — well, somehow, my chairs are always 
filled up with things. What do you suppose 
mother’ll say? Isn’t it a shame? 

Well, after I thought I ’d cried enough, you 
know, Winnie ’d been banging at the door so 
long I thought I ’d let him in, and you ought to 
have seen him ! He had on one of your old 
coats that mother gave to Patty to give to her 
cousin’s husband that has the consumption, and 
he ’d corked a moustache that went clear out to 
his ears, and then he had a Mother Goose under 
his arm ; said he was going to be Tom now, and 
have his room, and study Aunt Abbieses (I sup- 
pose he meant Anabasis) ; he did n’t wish to be 
disturbed ; I might go away so he could lock 
the door. 

Well, you see that made me laugh, only it 
would have been just as easy to cry again, and 
mother was wiping her eyes, and father was 
coughing and looking round, and so I went 
out-doors to see if I could n’t laugh some 


way. It is so horrid not to feel like laughing, 
isn’t it? 

Then Sarah Rowe came over, and she did n’t 
seem to mind it a bit because Francis was gone; 
but then she says he ’s been gone so much, now 
it is Sophomore year. I wonder if I sha’n’t mind 
it by the time you ’re a Soph. She says I sha’n’t, 
but I don’t believe any such a thing. Then you 
see I just felt as if I must have a good time some- 
how, and the kitty came out, and we all went to 
playing, and I got into Mrs. Surly’s yard befpre 
I thought. You know I never do think, any- 
way. So you see the puppy he came out and he 
went at the cat, and she put up her back and ran 
off mewing, and he after her, and I after both 
of them. That dog he wrung a cat’s neck once, 
and I was n’t going to have him wringing ours, 
so I never thought, and she put down into the 
cellar kitchen, and I went too, and I never looked 
nor anything, and I went splash ! into Mrs. Sur- 
ly’s tub of starch, and over it went, all on me, 
and the floor, and the cat, and the puppy, and 
Mrs. Surly. 


51 


Well, it was n’t very hot, and we were n’t any- 
body burnt very much but the puppy, and good 
enough for him ; but I thought I should go off 
laughing, and you ought to have heard Mrs. 
Surly scold. She should like to know if that was 
the way my ma brought me up, and if I did n’t 
know children ought to be at their book instead 
of tumbling down their neighbours’ cellars and 
upsetting their neighbours’ starch, and burning 
their neighbours’ dogs, and she should tell my ma 
of me and my conduct before the sun went down. 

So what should she do but come marching 
over just before dinner, with the longest lingo, 
but of course I ’d told mother all about it before- 
hand, and she tried to look sober and tell me I 
must be careful, but I could see her laughing 
right out of her eyes the whole time. 

We had mince pie for dinner, and I missed you 
more than ever. How you did use to pull out 
the raisins ! We had some tomatoes too. 

Oh, Tom, I do miss you ! Everybody sends a 
world of love. I ’ve been counting the weeks till 
you come home. You have the nicest part of it. 


52 


It *s always harder to stay at home and think 
about it than it is to go off and do it, I think. 

It does seem to me as if I thought about you 
all the time pretty much. If you were to be 
such a boy as Francis Rowe, I believe I 
should n’t know anything what to do. 

How horrid it would be if you were to learn 
to swear. Please don’t. But of course you 
would n’t. 

Write me all about the Sophs, and who gets 
hazed, and everything. I should think it would 
be perfectly mag, to go to college. I think it ’s 
real mean girls can’t. 

Would n’t it be nice if you could peep in the 
door now, and let me hug you? 

Your very loving 

Gypsy. 

P. S. I send a blue neck-tie. I meant to 
get it done before you went, but I did n’t. I 
sewed on it some in school, and Miss Cardrew 
made me lose my recess for it, — just like her! 
Blue is real becoming to you, you know. You 


S3 


used to look dreadfully handsome in the other ; 
something like — well, like Haroun Alraschid, I 
think; then sometimes like Major Winthrop. 
The girls used to go crazy over his photograph, 
because it did look so much like you. They 
have n’t any of them got such a brother, and I 
guess they know it. Why, if there is n’t another 
blot, and I have n’t any more idea how it came 
there than Adam. G. 

On Friday night, as Gypsy was passing her 
father’s store on the way home from school, Mr. 
Simms, the clerk, came to the door and called 
her. 

“ Here ’s a letter for you, Miss Gypsy ; it 
came in with the rest after your father had gone 
up to the house. It’s a — really a very peculiar 
looking letter. But then there always is some- 
thing peculiar about you, you know, my dear.” 

“ Oh, thank you, Mr. Simms — yes, I know 
I ’m always doing things out of the way, but — 
dear me ! I never did! Did you ever? That 
old Tom ! Why, what did the postman say? ” 


54 










* • 


p 






























Tom had certainly “paid her” richly. The 
letter was enclosed in a flaring crimson envelope, 
conspicuous anywhere, especially so at York- 
bury, where crimson envelopes were few and far 
between, and it bore this inscription : — 

“ To Miss Jemima Breynton, R. R. Terror 
of puppies and elderly ladies. Enemy-in-espe- 
cial to starch-tubs and study-hours. Enemy- 
in-general to the peace and order of society in 
Yorkbury, Vermont.” 

“ I have been wondering what R. R. could 
possibly stand for, my dear,” observed Mr. 
Simms, mildly. 

“Oh, that’s a secret between Tom and me,” 
said Gypsy, between her shouts of laughter, 
and started for home on the run, to show the 
letter to her mother. 

If any reader should share Mr. Simms’s curi- 
osity to such an extent as to suffer seriously 
from loss of sleep or appetite, he is hereby con- 
fidentially referred to the first volume of Gyp- 
sy’s history for a solution of the mystery. 


57 


I think it necessary to say, however, for the 
sake of my reputation as a historian, that this 
misdirecting of letters is a sorry joke, with 
about as much wit in it as there is apt to be in 
young people’s fun, and that I am not givin 
my sanction to any such lawless proceedings. 

The letter, though so obviously directed to 
Gypsy, contained only a slip for her ; the note 
itself was for her mother. 

“ A letter from Tom ! a letter from Tom ! a 
letter from Tom ! ” shouted Gypsy, rushing info^ 
the house. “ Mother, do come and read it, for 
I ’m in such a hurry to hear ! Mother, father, 
all of you ! ” 

And all of them came, down to Winnie, with 
his hands and mouth full of bread and butter, 
and Patty, with broom and duster. 

“ How soon he has written, — the dear boy ! ” 
said his mother, flushing with pleasure, and read 
aloud to a breathless audience : — 

My dear Mother, — I reached here safely 
Tuesday P. M. : had a jolly time Monday night 


58 


at Uncle Jeb’s; he has a decidedly pretty 
daughter, and I want her asked up to York- 
bury some vacation. 

Old Yale seems to conduct herself with pro- 
priety, and is not, mirabile dictu (“ His old 
Latin ! ’’put in Gypsy), quite as much impressed 
by the arrival and presence of your distinguished 
son as might naturally be expected, and would 
certainly be becoming in her. It ’s rather a jump 
from graduating at Yorkbury and feeling your- 
self of some importance, to being nothing but a 
“little Freshy,” and being treated by those un- 
utterable Sophs as if you were a lower order of 
animal, somewhere in the region of the oyster ; at 
any rate, something to which the gorilla would 
be a Milton. I met Francis Rowe on Chapel 
Street last night, and he cut me dead ; took no 
more notice of me than if he ’d never heard of 
such a being. That ’s the way they all do. 
You ’ll say it ’s ridiculous and ungentlemanly, 
and I suppose it is ; but boys will be boys, and 
college boys never think about being gentlemen, 
as far as I see. It does n’t strike me now that I 


59 


shall do so when I’m a Soph ; but there ’s no 
telling. 

They ’re hazing like everything this year. No- 
body has touched me, and I should like to see 
them try it, though a lot of them came into our 
house last night. We had all of us sat up till 
midnight expecting them, and were all ready. 
They banged open the door, and went into one 
of the fellows’ room, and set him up on a stove, 
and made him make a speech. Then they broke 
open his trunk, and tossed out all his things, and 
made him drink about half a pint of vinegar and 
pepper. That ’s very mild treatment, however ; 
in the proper sense of the word, it is n’t “ haz- 
ing ” unless you have your head shaved, or are 
ducked to death under a pump, or taken out of 
bed and thrown out of a second-story window 
into a snow-bank. 

Hall and I have each of us bought a good- 
sized billy, and we have n’t the slightest objec- 
tions to using them if occasion requires. I don’t 
believe we shall be touched. 

Am having a jolly time ; study comes a little 

60 


rough at first, though. I should like to look in 
at home a minute, well enough. Love to father 
and Winnie and all. My respectful regards to 
Patty. Will write to father next week. 

Your pears and doughnuts taste good, I tell 
you. I say, little mother, I wonder if there 
are many fellows have just such a mother as 
you. 

Tom. 

P. S. While I write, some Sophs going by 
are helloing, “Put out that light, Freshy! 
Fresh, put out that light, I say — quick!” 
Freshy does not put it out, and there come two 
stones bang against my window. You ’re pretty 
good-looking, but you can’t come in, — the 
blinds are shut. 

“What’s on your slip of paper, Gypsy?” 
they all asked, after the letter was read and 
discussed. 

“Oh, nothing much,” said Gypsy, folding it 
up and putting it in her pocket. This was what 
was on it : — 


6x 


Dear Gyp, — Since you are interested in 
the fancy department, I hope you will be 
pleased with the accompanying envelope. 

Thanks for the neck-tie; it is becoming, of 
course. Do I ever wear anything that is n’t, my 
dear? Your letter was prime, and came in the 
nick of time. (N. B. I am aspiring to the 
position of class poet, and this is by way of 
practice.) 

Don’t you tell, it will bother father, and 
mother will look so sober, but I made a pretty 
bad fizzle in Homer to-day ; don’t know how it 
came about exactly, but it was too warm to 
study, and last night there were some fellows in. 
A fizzle, you know, isn’t as bad as a flunk; 
that’s when you can’t say anything. I stum- 
bled through some, and made up some more; 
but somehow it did n’t hang together very well. 
Mean to make a rush to-morrow, and make up 
for it. Be a good little girl. Try Mrs. Surly’s 
puppy with a Lucifer match, — light it right under 
his nose, and see if he does n’t jump. 

T. 


62 


A while after the letter came, Gypsy silently 
stole away and out of the house. 

“ Where are you going?” called her mother; 
“ it ’s almost tea-time.” 

“ I ’ll be back soon,” said Gypsy. “ I ’m 
going to run down to Peace Maythorne’s a 
minute.” 

“ I suppose she ’s gone to tell her about Tom’s 
letter,” observed her mother, smiling. “ It is 
strange how that child goes to Peace when any- 
thing happens ; if she ’s very glad or very sorry, 
Peace must know all about it.” 

“ It is strange, and Peace is so poor, and has 
no education, either, Mary,” said Mr. Breynton, 
musingly ; “ you ’re not afraid of her getting 

any harm, my dear?” 

His wife laughed. 

“ Harm from Peace Maythorne ! She ’s one 
of Gypsy’s greatest blessings; she acts like a 
balance-wheel on all the child’s fly-away notions. 
Besides, she is not exactly uneducated ; suffer- 
ing teaches deeper and better than books, some- 
times. Poor thing ! ” 


63 


“ The doctors can never do anything for her, 
I suppose?” 

“ Oh, no.” 

Gypsy, meantime, was making her way as 
Gypsy almost always made her way, — on the 
hop, skip, and jump, — down through the 
crowded, wretched streets which led to Peace 
Maythorne’s home. It seems rather hard, per- 
haps, to talk about a home , when one has noth- 
ing but a weary bed in one bare room, and a 
slow life of pain and utter dependence. Very 
hard, Gypsy used to think it was ; the mourn- 
fulness and the pity of it grew into her love for 
this crippled girl, and made of it something very 
tender, very reverent, — quite unlike her love for 
any of the strong, comfortable, happy girls at 
school. Unconsciously, too, she grew herself 
more gentle, more thoughtful, the more she saw 
of Peace. 

The very door of that hushed and lonely room 
she opened as Gypsy never opened doors any- 
where else, — softly. 

Peace turned her quiet face over on the pillow 


64 


in surprise that afternoon, at the sight of her 
standing by the bed. 

“ Why, how still you must have been ! I 
did n’t hear you come in at all.” 

“ Do you want me? I suppose I do tire you 
to death.” 

“ Want you ? Oh, I am so glad ! ” 

“ That ’s nice,” said Gypsy, in her honest 
fashion ; “I do so love to have people glad to 
see me ! ” 

The sunlight which flooded the room fell all 
over Peace ; her face in it looked pitifully thin 
and pale; paler than usual, though smiling as 
it always was, and quiet. 

“ What ’s the matter? ” said Gypsy, abruptly, 
looking down on it. 

“Matter? Oh, nothing. Did I say anything 
was the matter? ” 

“ No, you never do. But something is. 
What has happened?” 

“ I did n’t sleep much, — well, not any, last 
night, that’s all. Come, Gypsy, let’s not talk 
about me.” 


5 


6<c 


“But what kept you awake?” persisted 
Gypsy. Peace made no reply. 

" Peace, I do believe it was your aunt ! ” 

Peace coloured painfully, but she would not 
speak. Just what the girl had to bear in her 
orphaned, dependent life, probably no one ever 
knew. This was sure, — the physical suffering 
was the least of it. Yet the woman to whose 
charge her weakness and her pain were left was 
never consciously unkind to her brother’s child ; 
she was one of those people — and their name 
is Legion — who “ mean well ,” but “ do7it know 
howl ’ 

“ What has she been saying to you ? ” said 
Gypsy, in a savage undertone. 

“ Oh, nothing much ; she came home tired, 
and of course she could n’t help wishing I could 
work, and — Gypsy, I don’t want to talk about 
it. She did n’t know I cared. She is very 
good. She put my tea back on the stove this 
morning because it was so weak the first time ; 
she did, really, Gypsy.” 

“ She ’d have been a heathen if she had n’t ! ” 


66 


exploded Aunt Jane’s sworn enemy. Peace 
understood that it was all for love of her, but it 
gave her more pain than help when Gypsy 
talked like this. She laid her hands down in 
Gypsy’s in a weak, appealing way, and said : 

“ Gypsy — please ! ” and Gypsy stopped 
short, — only tapping her foot angrily on the 
floor. 

“ If you would only talk about yourself!” 
said Peace. 

“ That ’s what I always do when I get with 
you. Then if I say anything else, I say it all 
wrong, and I don’t see that I ’m any good any- 
way. I believe I ’ll get a piece of court-plaster 
and paste it over my mouth, and then the world 
will be so much the safer.” 

“ But you had something to say when you 
came in,” said Peace, smiling; “I saw it 
in your eyes. What is that, — from your 
brother? ” 

Gypsy answered by unfolding the slip of 
paper and giving it to Peace. Whether it was 
quite right to show to any one else what Tom 


67 


was not willing that his mother should see, she 
never stopped to think. She had no secrets 
from Peace Maythorne. If this were to be, as 
she vaguely felt that it might be, the first of 
many others like it, she felt sure that she never 
could keep them from her. Fortunately, Peace 
was the very model of a confidante; as kindly 
and inviting as a spring sunbeam ; as dumb as 
a statue. 

Peace read it and laid it down. 

“Well?” said Gypsy. 

“ I don’t know ; ought you to show me 
this? ” 

“ Oh, Tom would n’t care ; you ’re not like 
anybody else. He knows I tell you everything. 
What do you think?” 

“ I am a little sorry. But then, all boys will 
have bad lessons sometimes, you know.” 

“ Tom ought not to,” said Gypsy, with a little 
flash of pride. “ He might have been the first 
scholar in his class here, instead of the sixth ; 
Mr. Guernsey said so. There ’s no need of his 
doing so ! ” 


68 


Peace twisted the paper about her fingers, 
thinking. 

“You see I felt sort of sorry,” said Gypsy, 
“ and so I thought if I came and told you, I ’d 
feel better. But there, I don’t see that I can 
help it.” 

“You might say something about it when 
you write.” 

“What? He’s so much older, I can’t play 
grandmother and preach to Tom. If I do, he 
catches me up in his arms and runs all round 
the house with me, and as likely as not leaves 
me up on a closet shelf, or out on top of the 
wood-pile, and that ’s all the answer I get ! ” 

“ You need n’t preach. Say just what you 
said to me, and no more, — I’m sorry.” 

“ Um — well, I don’t know but you’re right. 
I ’ll think about it.” 


/ 


69 



O NE gets used to anything, and after 
a while Gypsy became used to 
Tom’s being away. It took a few 
weeks, to be sure ; the first twilights 
were very dreary without him, the first bright 
mornings empty and cold ; the first few Sunday 
nights it was exceedingly easy to cry ; then all 
the fun seemed to have dropped out of boat-rides 
and nutting-parties; hay-cocks and wood-piles 
were a mockery ; there was a sting in the sight of 
the very cat, now that there was no one to tie tin 

7 ° 


dippers to her tail and make her walk through 
stove-pipes. But after a while it came to seem 
a matter of course that there should be no Tom 
about, — strange, sometimes, to think that it had 
ever been otherwise ; though his handsome, 
merry face was just as often in her thoughts, he 
himself just as dear. Then there were the 
letters. And such letters ! — eight, ten, twelve 
pages, twice a week, from Gypsy to Tom; a 
full sheet hurried over in study hours, once a 
week, from Tom to Gypsy, which was more than 
she expected, and certainly, considering how 
many letters Tom had to write, was a great 
deal. This was for the first three weeks. The 
fourth week Sarah Rowe had a birthday party, 
and Gypsy was so busy festooning a new white 
dress with little knots of blue ribbon that she 
only wrote to Tom once, and a scrap of a note at 
that. The fifth week Tom did not write at all. 
Somehow or other it came about after this that 
Gypsy — “ well, she meant to send off her letters 
regularly, of course ; but something was always 
happening just at the time she wanted to write, 


71 


and then she was always losing the mails, and 
one time she had her letter all written and 
ready, and Winnie dropped it into the well, and 
— well, you needn’t laugh; she would write 
tlyree times next week and make up. But writ- 
ing letters was horrid work, and there was n’t 
half as much to say as there was at first ; be- 
sides, she always blotted her fingers so.” 

Indeed, she had — like a few other sisters — 
been more negligent about it than she sup- 
posed. She had occasion afterwards to be very 
sorry. 

Tom said little about himself to any one, in 
his letters home. They all noticed that, as the 
term went on. His letters were very short, 
very funny, very much like Tom; they gave 
accounts of the hazing, his last quarrel with his 
landlady, the Tutor’s Latest, how the Sophs 
were beaten at the last “ rush,” how hard the 
seats were at the chapel, what a pretty girl he 
saw on Temple Street yesterday, how many 
weeks there were to the end of the term, and 
how glad he should be when it was over. But 


73 


they heard little about his studies, scarcely any- 
thing of the friends he made. His chum was 
referred to often, but it was usually, “ Hall was 
out late last night, and woke me up coming in ; ” 
or, “ Hall is waiting for me to go out with 
him ; ” or, “ Hall is bothering me to translate 
his Homer for him, and I don’t know any more 
about it than he does; ” sometimes, “ Hall is a 
jolly fellow, but he is n’t your style exactly, 
mother.” His mother’s face saddened some- 
times as she folded the letters, but she never 
said why. 

So the term passed on, and all thoughts of 
Tom merged at last into a happy looking to its 
end. He would be here in five weeks; he 
would be here in four; the four slipped into 
three ; the three slided into two ; the two were 
one before they knew it. Ah, it was pleasant 
enough to have only days to count. 

“ I feel precisely like an India-rubber ball,” 
said Gypsy, confidentially, to Peace. 

“ An India-rubber ball ! ” 

“Yes; I want to be on the bounce all the 


73 


time, and I can’t keep still to save me. I ’ve 
upset three tumblers of water, two ink-bottles, 
and a milk-pitcher, to-day, jumping round, 
besides throwing a snow-ball smash ! through 
Mrs. Surly’s kitchen window. Just think, Peace, 
of having your brother come home to be 
hugged and kissed, in just four days ! ” 

Peace thought, perhaps, more than Gypsy 
meant her to. She did not say, “ I have n’t 
anybody to kiss. Oh, Gypsy ! God has given 
you so much — so much, and me so little ! ” 
She did not say this. Peace never complained ; 
seldom talked about herself. Gypsy’s joy was 
her joy, and she answered with her bright, still 
smile, and eyes that were glad for Gypsy’s 
sake. But something in the quiet eyes, a 
faint, flitting shadow, — Peace could not help 
it, — made Gypsy stop with some merry words 
unspoken on her lips, and throw her arms 
around her neck, and say : — 

“ Oh, Peace, I never thought ! May n’t I 
love you enough to make up ? ” 

And a while after, knotting her merry brows 


74 


as if over a great new puzzle that she should be 
much obliged to anybody for answering : — 

“ I should like to know, Peace Maythorne, 
what makes all the good people have the 
troubles, and horrid, ugly, wicked people like 
me, that scold, and get mad, and forget their 
prayers, and all, live along just like one of those 
funny little round sunbeams coming in there 
through the hole in the curtain ! ” 

“ Sometimes I can’t see anything but a piece 
of gray cloud through the curtain,” said Peace, 
half to herself. 

“ Sunbeams don’t last forever — no,” said 
Gypsy, musing a little. “ I wonder how they 
feel rainy days ! ” 

At this she jumped up with a shiver and ran 
home. 

They were busy days, — these last before 
Tom came. “We must have some lemon 
pies; Tom likes them,” said his mother. “ I ’m 
going to make him a new neck-tie,” said Gypsy, 
“ and put it in his bureau drawer, and let him 
find it.” “Tom’s cornin’ home, and I’m goin’ 


75 


to hang his room up with lots of pictures,” 
said Winnie; and one day, when nobody was 
there, in he went with mucilage and scissors, 
and pasted a bewilderment of mad dogs, pas- 
senger cars, steamboats, hair-oil advertisements 
and other interesting selections from the news- 
papers, all over the pretty pink rosebuds that 
covered the walls. 

But the last day came, as all last days come, 
and the early December twilight fell in upon as 
pretty and cosey and eager a group as any col- 
lege boy need desire to find waiting for him on 
his first coming home. The fire — a wood-fire, 
for it had such a cheerful look, Mr. Breynton 
said — was flaring and snapping and crackling 
in the parlour grate; the bright curtains were 
drawn aside so that Tom could see the light 
shining far down the road ; the door open into 
the dining-room where the tea-table was set and 
the silver was flashing; a tempting odour of 
unknown deliciousness — drop-cakes, perhaps, 
or creamy Jenny Lind — stealing in from the 
kitchen. They were all gathered in the parlour 


76 



now, listening for the coach ; the mother sitting 
quietly by the fire ; the father pacing the room 
a little nervously ; Gypsy perched on one win- 
dow-sill and Winnie on the other, with their 
noses flattened on the glass ; and Patty’s head 
pushed in every now and then through the 


77 


dining-room door to keep a sort of angelic 
watch over things in general. 

“ I should like to know how you can ! ” broke 
out Gypsy, all at once, turning her eyes away 
from the window to snap them at her mother. 

“ How I can what? ” 

“ Sit still — in a chair, just as if Tom were n’t 
coming, and — knit ! ” 

“ When you get to be as old as I am, 
perhaps you will find out,” said her mother, 
smiling. 

“ It ’s time for the boy to be here,” said Mr. 
Breynton, making a third at the windows, 
shading his eyes from the light. 

“ I hope he won’t get chilled riding up ; it ’s a 
cold night.” 

“ I would have taken Billy and gone down 
for him, only the coach is so much warmer. 
There’s a fire in his room, I suppose?” 

“ Oh, yes ; Gypsy built it herself.” 

“I guess I did. I filled the stove almost to 
the top with pine knots; Tom always likes pine 
knots.” 


78 


“ I stuffed in free newspapers/ 1 put in Win- 
nie, anxious for a share of the honours ; “ free 
gre-at big newspapers ’n some shavings. Be- 
sides, I frew in lots of matches, — they make 
such funny little blue blazes. You can play 
Fourth o’ July as well as anything.” 

“ Hark ! ” said Gypsy. They all tried to 
listen, but Gypsy jumped down from the win- 
dow-sill, knocked over three chairs and a 
cricket, and was out of the door and down 
the yard before they knew what she was 
about 

“ Sleigh-bells, sleigh-bells ! The coach ! 
He ’s coming, coming, coming ! I see the top 
of his head, and the trunk, and — Oh, Thom-as 
Breynton ! ” 

And her head was on his shoulder, her arms 
about his neck, before the rest were down the 
steps. 

“This is something like,” said Tom, when 
supper was over, and they were all sitting around 
the parlour fire ; “ have n’t seen a wood-fire since 
I went away.” 


79 


“ How does your stove work?” asked his 
father. 

“ Oh, well enough, — when it does n’t smoke, 
and I don’t forget to put the coal on.” 

“ I used to think sometimes how you were 
sitting down evenings and looking into the 
fire,” said Gypsy, climbing into his lap ; she 
thought she should never be too large to climb 
into Tom’s lap. 

“Did you?” said Tom, with a queer laugh; 
“well, you had your trouble for nothing. I 
was out with Hall mostly evenings.” 

“What about the study-hours?” asked Mr. 
Breynton. 

“ Oh, we don’t have study-hours at college. 
I did the studying round generally when I 
felt like it. Some jolly good times I had, 
though ! ” 

His father and mother exchanged glances. 

“ I do believe you ’ve grown tall,” said 
Gypsy, nestling closer to him. 

“You have, you mean. People of my age 
don’t grow tall in three months.” 


80 


“ Grandfather ! 0-oh, just look at your 

moustache ! ” 

“ I should be happy to oblige you, but owing 
to a natural inability to see my mouth — ” 

“ But how it has grown ! I never saw it till 
just this minute, in the light. I never ! I guess 
the Yorkbury girls will rave about your coming 
back with it.” 

Handsome Tom drew his forefinger compla- 
cently across the ambitious silky line of dark- 
ness which just escaped looking like a crock , and 
seemed to think this very likely. 

“ Conceited fellow! You don’t deserve a 
sister to praise you up. But then it is so be- 
coming ! ” giving him a little squeeze to empha- 
sise her words. 

“ Gypsy, Gypsy ! you will certainly spoil 
him.” 

“Not I. He’s past that. Now, Tom, you 
may just begin and tell me all about that funny 
little fellow with red hair they hazed so, and 
that time you grabbed Tutor somebody or other 
in the rush, and then — Oh, what did your 

6 81 


landlady’s daughter do about the brass ring, 
and — ” 

“ Thomas,” interrupted his father, who had 
been pacing the room uneasily ever since the 
remark about study-hours, “ you have n’t told us 
anything about your rank. You know I wrote 
a great many times about it, but you never took 
the least notice. You took oration stand at 
least, I hope.” 

“Confound it!” said Tom, reddening sud- 
denly, “ do let the studies alone, please, father. 
A fellow gets enough of them in term time.” 

Tom was easily vexed by his father, but very 
seldom disrespectful to him. At Mr. Breynton’s 
reproof everybody was still, and at the silence 
Tom coloured again for shame. 

“Well, I didn’t mean just that, sir; but I 
don’t suppose I took the stand you expected of 
me, and I ’ve been so bored with books and 
lessons, I can’t bear the sound of them.” 

“ I don’t think you ’ve done right, Tom, not 
to keep me acquainted with your rank through 
the term,” began Mr. Breynton, but was stopped 


82 


by a quiet, appealing look from his wife. If 
Tom deserved a reprimand, she felt that this 
was no time to give it. Her way would have 
been to wait till she was alone with him, and 
he was willing to enter into a quiet, reasonable 
talk. But her husband, worried and nervous, 
kept on, as worried and nervous people will, 
making a bad matter very much worse, because 
he had not the self-control or the tact to let it 
drop. 

“ No, my dear, the amount of it is, he has 
been idling away his time, and he ought to be 
told of it; and after all the care and expense 
we Ve been to — ” 

Just then there was a shriek from Winnie, 
which the power fails me to describe. 

“ Ow ! oh ! ugh ! the old thing ! Le’ go of 
me-e-e ! Gypsy ’s ticklin’ me ; she ’s dropped a 
cent down my neck, and it ’s co-old ! ” 

“ Could n’t help it, dear, possibly, — such a 
chance ! Stand up and jump till it drops out, — 
there ! Now, Tom, tell us about the goose they 
shut up in Prof. Hadley’s desk; wasn’t it Prof. 


83 


Hadley? Come, father, I know you want to 
hear about it, and then you know you can tell 
about the Euclid proposition you tried to make 
up when you were in college ; I always do like 
to hear that.” 

Gypsy’s mother looked up over her knitting 
with a quick, searching glance. She did not 
quite understand. Was this a bit of childish 
fun and chatter and hurry to get away from a 
grave subject? Or was it a piece of womanly 
strategy, new and strange in Gypsy, sprung out 
of a perception of trouble as new and strange ? 
She had not seen Tom’s eyes flash, and his lips 
shut, while his father spoke, — she had not quite 
dared to look ; neither had she seen Gypsy 
start and quiver in his arms ; but she drew her 
own conclusions. 

The college stories filled up the rest of the 
evening, and there was no more trouble. To 
see Gypsy’s eyes twinkle, and the dimples dance 
all over her face, and to hear her laugh ringing 
out above alt the rest (Gypsy’s laugh always 
reminded one of fountains, and cascades, and 


84 






































































































































little brooks), one would never have guessed 
what she had found out that evening; it had 
come in the flash of a moment: in a moment 
she seemed to understand, and wondered that 
she had not understood before, all the rubs and 
jars that were coming between Tom and his 
father, all the misery of them and the wrong. 
More than this and worse than this, came a dim, 
doubtful suspicion of Tom. Could it be that 
he had not done just right in this long col- 
lege term? Could Tom be to blame for any- 
thing? 

This was the first faint outline of the first 
shadow of Gypsy’s life. 

Tom was tired with his journey, and started 
early to bed. 

“ And not a thing unpacked ? ” said Gypsy. 
“ I ’ll go up with you.” 

“ That trunk is n’t packed — well, not exactly 
after the patterns,” said Tom, shutting the door. 
Gypsy had the straps unfastened before he 
could get there to help her, and threw open 
the trunk, and uttered a little scream. 


87 


“ O - oh ! Why, I never ! Who ever saw 
such a looking muss? Why, Tom Breyn- 
ton ! ” 


“ Why, that ’s nothing,” said Tom. “ I 
smoothed it all over on top so as not to frighten 
the soul out of mother’s body ; you ought to see 
the strata underneath ; that ’s something like. 
You see I was in such a thundering hurry — ” 

“ Tom ! ” 


“ Well, such a hanged hurry, if you like it 
better.” 

“But I don’t like it better. It isn’t wicked, 
of course, nor anything like that, only — well, 
you used to talk like a gentleman before you 
went to college.” 

“And now I don’t? Thank you, ma’am. 
Well, the fact is, a fellow does n’t have much 
time to be a gentleman in college. If he gets 
through and saves his soul, he does well.” 

Tom did not say these words lightly, but in a 
changed, serious tone, with a sudden flash of 
trouble in his eyes. Gypsy turned to answer 
him, letting the cover of the trunk fall in her 


88 


haste, some eager words upon her lips. What- 
ever they were, Tom saw them coming. 

“ There ! look out ! did n’t that go on your 
hand? I thought it certainly had; you must 
be careful or you ’ll chop off all your fingers. 
As I was about to observe, my dear, when you 
were so impolite as to interrupt me by criticis- 
ing my syntax, I was in such a — hem ! such a 
hurry that I tossed things in as they came, and 
at that I did n’t get the trunk locked till the 
porter was dragging it down the last stair. 
Look out for the ink-bottles ! My prophetic 
soul tells me there are several lying round loose 
there somewhere.” 

“ I should think so ! Look here, — a pile 
of clean shirts, with two boots and a rubber, 
without any paper, right on top of them, and — 
oh, a bottle of mucilage tipped right into your 
box of paper collars ! Just see that jelly 
tumbler stuck on your best vest ! What ’s this 
in the middle of the pile of handkerchiefs, — 
a blacking-box! Oh, Tom, your Bible, — that ’s 
too bad ! All scratched up with the clasp of 


89 


your photograph album ! Mother ’ll be so 
sorry, and — oh, dear me! Look at the broken 
glass and the ink, and the neck-ties — swim- 
ming! ” 

“Well,” said Tom, looking rather subdued, 
“ most of it ’s gone into that pasteboard box ; 
sponge it up quick, before mother sees. Bother 
it all ! If I were an ink-bottle, I should n’t see 
any particular occasion for tipping over. Hand 
me the towel, or the pillow-case, or something. 
Newspaper does n’t get it up half as quick ! — 
well, there, we ’re all right now.” 

“ I should think you ’d taken a great spoon 
and stirred the trunk up like hasty pudding,” 
said Gypsy, trying to look severe, but laughing 
from eyes, mouth, and dimples. “ Oh, what 
are those books? Greek Lexicon — Euclid? 
What do you want of those in vacation?” 

“To make little girls ask questions,” said 
Tom, evasively. 

“ Oh, what a pretty dark-blue book, with 
Harper down at the bottom, — let me see ; 
what ’s the name ? ” 


90 


Tom took, — no, I am afraid he snatched it 
from her. 

“Let alone, Gypsy ! You bother me, touch- 
ing my things.” 

And at that he put it in his bureau drawer 
and locked it up. Gypsy said nothing, but she 
thought much. 

Presently, in hunting for his dressing-case, 
they came across something dark, ill-smelling, 
and ugly-looking. Gypsy took it up with an 
exclamation. 

“ Oh,” said Tom, carelessly, “ some of Hall’s 
cigars.” 

“ Hall’s?” 

“Yes, — that is to say, they were his once. 
He gave them to me on a bet one day.” 

“ And you have n’t used them. I ’m so glad. 
You don’t smoke, of course.” 

“Where is that shaving-brush? ” said Tom. 

When Gypsy left him for the night, she clung 
to him a little, her face hidden. 

“ Oh, Tom, it is so good to get you back ! 
And, Tom, dear, if you ’d come back anything 


91 


like Francis Rowe, I don’t know what I should 
have done ! ” 

“ Better go to bed,” said Tom, and walked 
straight over to the window and stood twisting 
the curtain cord till it broke. 

The next morning Tom and his father were 
shut up together for an hour and a half : nobody 
could get in ; nobody knew what was going on. 
At the end of the hour and a half Tom came out 
with a terrible frown on his handsome forehead, 
a look very unlike Tom about his mouth. He 
went directly to his room, shut his door hard, 
and locked it. He did not come down till 
dinner-time, and Gypsy did not dare to go to 
him. About the middle of the afternoon she 
went up and knocked. He did not hear, so 
she pushed open the door softly and went 
in. He was sitting by his table, with his 
books open before him, — the Greek and the 
Euclid, and, Gypsy had time to see before 
she spoke, the mysterious blue book which 
he had taken out of her sight so roughly the 
night before. 


92 


“Why, Tom, what are you doing?” 

“ Cramming.” 

“ Cramming? ” 

“ Studying, then ; shut the door, if you ’re 
going to talk about it.” 

Gypsy shut the door, and came up and stood 
beside him. 

“Studying in vacation? Why, I don’t un- 
derstand.” 

“ I don’t suppose you do, and I wish you 
need n’t. I ’m conditioned, that ’s all.” 

“ Conditioned ! ” Gypsy sat down slowly, 
looking at him. Tom took out his knife and 
began to whittle the table in dogged silence. 

“ That means — why, it means you did n’t 
get your lessons, and they — ” 

“ It means I fell below average, and I Ve 
got to make it up. There ! you have it now,” 
said Tom, bringing his hand down heavily on 
the table. 

“Oh, Tom,” said Gypsy, “lam so sorry!” 
And that was every word she said, and the very 
best thing she could have said. Tom winked, 


93 


and coughed, and turned over the leaves of his 
book, and threw it down sharply. 

“That’s the worst of it. I suppose I might 
have made you and mother proud of me. The 
tutors were rough on me, all through, every 
one, just because they said I might head the 
division if I chose to ; I should like to know 
how they knew ! ” 

“ Of course they knew ; everybody knows,” 
said Gypsy, sadly. “ And I thought — we all 
thought — ” She stopped, fearing that what 
she was going to say would sound like a taunt. 
Tom’s handsome face flushed. 

“ I know what you all thought. And if ever 
a fellow meant to behave and get a rank, I did. 
But you see there ’s always so much fun going 
on at college, and father does n’t make the least 
account of that. He ’s given me a terrible 
blowing this morning.” 

“ I was afraid so. About the rank? ” 

“Yes; that’s all he knows to talk about yet. 
He ’ll hunt up something else before long.” 

“ Tom ! ” 


94 


“Well, he does put me out so, Gypsy. I 
suppose I deserve a little of it, but he has such 
a way of hacking at you. It’s Tom this, Tom- 
that, Tom the other, forever reminding you that 
you ’ve been acting like a fool. He knocks out 
all the sorry there is in me.” 

Gypsy sat in silence, not wishing to say any- 
thing disrespectful of her father, not daring or 
wishing to throw all the blame on Tom. Pres- 
ently, thinking that she was in his way, she rose 
to go out of the room. Tom called her back. 

“ See here, Gypsy, you ’ve seen this pony of 
course, and I don’t know that I ’m sorry. I hid 
it away from you last night, and felt cheap 
enough. I suppose you ’ll think I ’m a horrible 
sinner, but I can’t bear to cheat about it.” 

“Pony?” said Gypsy, bewildered, looking 
round with some vague ideas of finding a 
rocking-horse, or some stuffed zoological speci- 
men. 

“ Here, this.” Tom took up the blue book, 
and Gypsy saw that it was a translation of 
Homer. She looked up with a shocked, recoil- 


95 


ing look that Tom had never seen in his sister’s 
eyes before, and that he did not very soon 
forget. 

“ Tom, how can you ? ” 

Tom’s honest eyes quailed, looked doubtful, 
brightened again 

“ Gypsy, it is n’t half as bad as you think. 
I only use it in the worst places, after I ’ve made 
my own translation. All the fellows do that, 
and the Faculty know it as well as we do. I 
don’t use it as some fellows do, — learn all my 
lesson by it ; I would n’t be mean enough.” 

“But why use it at all? ” said Gypsy, doubt- 
fully, yet half relieved. 

“ Then I should n’t stand on an equal footing 
with the rest, to start with ; it’s a perfectly 
understood thing. Why, one time one of the 
tutors talked with the class about it. To use 
it as I use it is no cheat ; I ’ve not quite come to 
that 

“Then why did you hide it away and keep 
it secret? I don’t see exactly.” 

“Just for the reason I hide away so many 


96 


things,” said Tom, half under his breath, — 
“ father. He would make a terrible row.” 

Gypsy did not say anything. 

“ A fellow does n’t like to be looked at with 
such eyes as you had a minute ago,” said Tom, 
moving uneasily in his chair. “ If you won’t 
believe I use it in honest ways, here, — to show 
you how little I care for it, — take the thing 
and lock it up in your drawer, and I ’ll come to 
you when I want it.” 

It is not my purpose to enter into a discussion 
of the minor moralities of “ ponying ” here, 
or to decide whether or not Tom’s view of the 
matter, which is by no means an unusual one, 
was correct. Gypsy did not; she followed her 
instinct: she kissed Tom, seized the book, and 
ran away to her own room, feeling very thankful, 
and wondering what her eyes had to do with it. 

Into the dark outline Gypsy had scattered one 
little seed, perhaps. If she sowed her shadow 
full of such, it might prove to be no shadow at 
all, but a spot of bloom flashing white and 
golden in the light. 


97 


sunny morning, a few days after Tom 
came, Gypsy was sitting by the dining- 
room window, which she had opened to let a 
breath of the fresh, sparkling air into the heated 
room. She was very busy with her work, 
which was of a sort unusual for a girl. She 
was neither crocheting, nor netting, nor knitting 
tidies, nor stringing beads, nor darning stock- 
ings, — though I cannot say that there were 
not an abundance up in her bureau drawers in 
sad need of darning ; — she was making a ball. 
Neither was it one of the soft, pudding-like 


98 


affairs commonly and contemptuously styled 
“ girls’ balls ; ” it was wound on a bullet, with 
the finest, strongest twine, and almost as tightly 
drawn as if her firm pink fingers had been 
twice as large and brown as they were. She 
was now sewing on the leather cover with stout 
waxed twine and an enormous needle, her face 
flushed and her fingers aching. Tom was the 
object of this, as he was now of almost every- 
thing that she did. Tom liked to pass ball with 
her, and it kept him at home. 

Suddenly she started a little, and dropped her 
work, — needles, thread, ball, and all. It was 
only a sound that she had heard, but it sent the 
hot blood flushing over her face, and her eyes 
grew dark and troubled. It was the sound of 
voices, — two ; of voices in loud and angry 
discussion. She could not see the speakers, but 
they seemed to be approaching the house behind 
the wood-pile : to avoid hearing what they said 
was impossible. 

“ I should like to know how long this has 
been going on.” 


99 


There was no answer. 

“ I should like to know how long this has 
been going on, Tom.” 

“ I don’t know, sir, and I don’t see that it is 
anything so dreadful, if it had been going on 
alj-the term ; there are n’t fifteen fellows in the 
class that don’t do it.” 

“ What other men do is no concern of yours. 
It is a filthy habit, and I never thought a son 
of mine would come to it. Besides, it will ruin 
your health. How much more of the stuff have 
you? ” 

“ A few of Hall’s Havanas, and some I bought 
myself.” 

“ Well, sir, you will throw them away to- 
day. I can’t have it.” 

“ I don’t think it is a case in which you 
ought to give me any coimnands , father. I ’m 
too old to be treated so.” 

“ I can’t help it, my son ; I can’t help it. 
If you ’re young enough to do such things, 
you ’re young enough to be commanded. You 
don’t know how you have troubled and disap- 


IOO 





* 










* 
























pointed me. I lay awake all last night worry- 
ing about you, and — ” 

“ Why could n’t you trust me a little then, 
father, and say you did n’t like it, and then leave 
the matter to me? Mother and Gypsy go at 
me different ways. I might have given it up for 
them'' Just there the voices stopped, and the 
speakers came in sight around the wood-pile; 
Tom flushed and angry, his father with a trou- 
bled, helpless face. 

Mrs. Breynton, too, had heard, it seemed, 
for she came into the entry, and met them at the 
door. She said nothing, but her eyes asked 
what was the matter. 

“ I found him out behind the wood-pile, 
smoking, and that’s what’s the matter!” said 
his father, excitedly. 

“ Mr. Simms sent over a message from the 
store just now for you,” said Mrs. Breynton, in 
her quiet way. “ Can’t we talk about this at 
some other time? He said you were wanted 
very much, — something about the new hydraulic 
press, I believe.” 


103 


“ Oh, I wonder if it has come ! Well, I must 
go right over. Tom, you can tell the story to 
your mother yourself.” 

But she did not ask for it. She let him slip 
away to his room unobserved ; he would be 
betteiyTffone till that flash was out of his eye. 
Tom’s mother always comprehended him. 

Gypsy was a little like heV, for she too left 
Tom to himself, determined not. to say anything 
about what had happened this morning, — if 
indeed she ever spoke of it, — until exactly the 
right time came. The right time came that very 
afternoon. 

She and Tom had been out together at York- 
bury’s fashionable hour, on Yorkbury’s fashion- 
able promenade, — down to the post office. 
Gypsy highly enjoyed — as what girl would 
not ! — putting on her best hat and cherry 
ribbons, swinging her new cherry-lined muff by 
its tassels, and walking up and down among the 
girls and boys with Tom, to “ show him off.” 
A handsome brother fresh from college, with a 
fancy cane and a Sigma Epsilon pin, and a 


104 


moustache, was a possession well worth having. 
All the girls were sure to watch them, and inform 
her confidentially at recess the next day that 
they wished they had a brother just exactly like 
him. Such a delightful little sense of airy 
importance there was, too, in taking his arm, 
and trying to look as if she had been used to 
taking gentlemen’s arms these dozen years ! 

On this afternoon, after a little chatting and 
skirmishing and clustering around the office 
steps, and after Gypsy had listened to the com- 
munications of some half-dozen girls who all 
happened to have something singularly impor- 
tant to tell her, they fell in with Sarah Rowe and 
Francis, and the four walked home together. 
On the way, Francis took a cigar from his 
pocket, and lazily lighted it. 

“No offence to the ladies, I hope?” 

“ Dear, no ! ” cried Sarah. “ Why, I dote on 
cigar-smoke, — when it’s the real Havana, I 
mean, of course ; I think there ’s something so 
charming about it, don’t you, Gypsy?” 


“ No,” said Gypsy, bluntly. 


“Why, really,” said Mr. Francis, pausing with 
the cigar half-way to his lips, “ I did n’t know 
— I—” 

“ Oh, you need n’t stop on my account,” said 
Gypsy, coolly. “ Sarah asked what I thought, 
and I told her.” 

‘WVell, since you don’t care,” said Mr. Francis, 
and smoked all the way home. Gypsy was 
decidedly too young to waste his gallantry upon ; 
especially when such a stupendous sacrifice was 
involved. 

“ See here,” said Tom, after the Rowes had 
turned off to go home ; “ don’t you really like 
tobacco-smoke, Gypsy?” 

“ I particularly dislike it,” said Gypsy. 

“ Well, that ’s queer ! I thought all girls 
raved over it, like Sarah there. So you think, 
as father does, that it ’s wicked to smoke? ” 

“ Wicked ? no, indeed. But I think it’s horrid .” 

Gypsy’s “ horrid ” was untranslatable. Tom 
winced under it as he would never have done if 
she had undertaken to treat him to an anti- 
tobacco sermon. 

106 


“ My dear, what a tone ! Anybody would 
think you were talking to a cannibal or a 
Mormon. Well, to be honest, Gyp, I wish 
there were a few other girls like you ; there ’d 
be less smoking. Most of them make their 
brothers cigar-cases and tobacco-bags, to say 
nothing of teasing for cigarettes themselves, — 
at least I ’ve heard that done more than once. 
I rather think you would n’t make me a tobacco- 
bag, now, if I asked you.” 

“ Ask me if you dare, sir ! ” 

“ Well, I should n’t dare. Now you see, 
Gypsy, I don’t think there ’s anything so hor- 
rible about smoking, nor disgusting, nor ungen- 
tlemanly, — that is, after you get used to it ; 
but I do wish father had a little more of your 
style. To tell the truth, I ’m not so fond of it 
but that I would have given it up for you or 
mother, if I were asked in a proper way; but 
to be talked to as if I had committed the seven 
deadly sins, and then told I must n’t, on top of 
it, is more than a fellow can stand ! Now all the 
smoking I do has got to be done on the sly.” 


“ But you would n’t do that!' 

Gypsy said this with a little of the look that 
she had when she took the “ pony ” from him 
upstairs. 

Tom shrugged his shoulders and whistled. 

Th^^Walked on in silence a few minutes, he 
with his handsome face working and changing. 

“ Gypsy,” he said suddenly. 

“ Well?” 

“ You ’re sort of taken down, — blue, — cut 
up, — about your revered and idolised brother’s 
collegiate course so far, — now own up.” 

“Yes,” said Gypsy, “a little, Tom.” 

“ Well, to put it in black and white, so am 
I. I did mean, on my word and honour, to 
take a rank, and let the pomps and vanities 
alone. You don’t know the worst of me, 
either.” 

“The worst! Worse than this! Oh, Tom, 
what will father — ” 

Gypsy began so, but stopped, seeing that she 
had said the wrong thing. There was an awk- 
ward silence. 

108 


“ Gypsy,” said Tom, at length, “ I wish you 
would write to a fellow oftener.” 

“Why?” 

“Well, it’s something from home, and you 
have more time than the rest. Besides, I tell 
you, Gypsy, you have n’t the least idea what 
sort of doings there are going on all round a 
chap when he ’s away from you, — not the least; 
and I hope you never will. It is one thing to 
keep straight in Yorkbury, and another at Yale. 
And getting something from home, and being 
reminded that there ’s somebody who would be 
sorry, — well, every little helps. Pretty long 
breathing-spaces there* were between some of 
your letters last term ; you gave me plenty of 
time to forget you.” 

Gypsy’s cheeks burned for shame and sorrow, 
and then and there she made a certain promise 
to herself, which, I am glad to say, she never 
broke. 

A day or two after, she was out in the front 
yard snowballing with Tom, when Francis Rowe 
lounged up to the fence. 


109 


“ Hilloa ! ” said Tom. 

“How are you?” nodded Francis; “here a 
minute.” 

Tom went, pursued by Gypsy’s well-aimed 
balls. 

“ I have something to tell you,” said Francis, 
mysteriously, and then he lowered his voice so 
that Gypsy, from the door-steps where she was 
sitting, could not hear what it was. She was 
incapable of trying to listen, so she turned away 
and began to make statuettes out of the damp 
snow. Every now and then, however, she 
caught a word: “East Yorkbury.” “Who’ll 
be the wiser?” “But — I don’t know — ” 
“ Prime fun.” “ Pshaw ! man ! where ’s the 
harm? There’ll be — ” Then mysterious 
whispers again, and at last Francis walked off 
whistling, and Tom came back. He had 
forgotten all about the snowballs ; he looked 
perplexed and thoughtful, and sat down on the 
steps without saying a word. Gypsy waited a 
minute, then kicked over her statuettes and 
walked abruptly into the house, a little disap- 


IIO 


pointed, but too proud to ask for anything that 
he did not choose to give her. 

That night she went to singing-school with 



Sarah Rowe. Tom did not go ; he said he was 
going to be busy ; at which Gypsy wondered a 
little, but said nothing. 

“ Francis would n’t come to-night, either,” said 
Sarah, as they went in together. “ He ’s gone 


to a billiard-match over at East Yorkbury, I 
believe, or something of the sort. At least I 
heard him talking to Bob Guest about it, only 
he said I mustn’t tell.” 

Gypsy stopped short, her face flushing. 

“ Whajrtlme — do you know what time he was 
going?” 

“ I don’t remember exactly, — half-past seven, 
I think. Anyway, I know he expected to be 
home before it was very late. I suppose he 
thought father would have something to say 
about it. That East Yorkbury tavern is a horrid 
place. I should be ashamed to be seen there if 
I were Francis. But what’s the matter? Where 
on earth are you going?” 

“ Home.” 

“ Home? ” 

“ I don’t believe I care to stay to the meeting,” 
said Gypsy, hurriedly; “it’s twenty-five miniates 
after seven now, and how few have come. I 
don’t believe it ’s going to be much of a meet- 
ing. Besides, I ’ve just thought of something I 
want to do.” 


12 


“ But there *s the solo in ‘ Star of the Even- 
ing/ — what shall we do without you ? Oh, 
there ’s George Castles up in the corner, look- 
ing at you like everything. I know he means 
to come home with you.” 

But Sarah suddenly discovered that she was 
talking to the empty entry. Gypsy had slipped 
out and down the steps. 

She started homewards on a rapid walk, 
which soon broke into a run. The moon was 
full, and the snow-covered hills and fields, bright 
in the light, looked like a picture cut in pearl. 
At any other time the beauty and the hush 
would have carried Gypsy away into a world 
of delightful young dreams. To-night she had 
something else to think about. The girls and 
boys on their way to singing-school stopped 
and wondered as she ran past them, calling 
after her; she scarcely allowed herself time to 
answer, but flew on, flushed and panting, till 
she had left them out of sight, and was at last 
alone upon the moonlit road. 

Not quite alone, though. The sound of 


8 


"3 


sleigh-bells broke suddenly on the air, and a 
dark bay horse and slight cutter turned a near 
corner, and swept up to her, and shot past her, 
and left her standing like a statue. 

Two men were in the sleigh, and the light as 
they passed struck their faces sharply. They 
were Francis Rowe and Tom. 

Gypsy stood a moment looking after them, 
shocked and puzzled and helpless ; then a quick 
thought flashed brightly over her face ; she 
started with a bound, and sprang away towards 
home. 

She was very near it, — nearer than she had 
thought ; it took her but a moment to reach the 
end of the garden, to climb the fence, to wade 
through the snow that lay deeply on the flower- 
beds, and so come out into the back yard. The 
house was still and dark. Her father and 
mother were both out to tea, and Winnie was 
in bed. Patty’s light glimmered from the 
kitchen where she nodded half asleep over her 
sewing. 

Gypsy went directly to the barn, unlocked 


the stable door, and peered into the dark stall 
where old Billy was sedately dreaming over last 
summer’s clover-tops. She untied his halter, 
pulled him out with a jerk, and saddled and 
bridled him briskly. She had done it many 
times before, when Tom and her father were 
both away, but it was always opposed to Billy’s 
theories of the eternal fitness of things, and to 
be called away from one’s dreams and one’s 
clover at such an unearthly hour, by a girl , was 
certainly adding insult to injury. His justifiable 
displeasure thereat he signified — as I have no 
doubt I should have done if I had been in his 
place — by backing into the stall, tossing his 
head just one inch beyond her reach, sidling 
away when she was ready to mount, biting her 
fingers, and nipping her arms, and treading on 
her dress, and otherwise playing the agreeable, 
till her patience and temper were nearly ex- 
hausted. Finally, by dint of threats, persua- 
sion, and diplomacy, she succeeded, to his 
intense mortification and disgust, in mounting, 
and whipped him out into the cold night air. 


ns 


There were two roads to East Yorkbury, a 
long one, and a short one which had been cut 
across for farmers through the fields. Tom 
and Francis would take the long one, for there 
was no sleighing upon the other. There was a 
chanc^i just a chance, that a swift rider through 
the fields might intercept them. But the snow 
lay deep and drifted and roughly broken ; and 
Billy was neither so young nor so free as he 
might have been. However, Gypsy was not 
a girl to give up very easily to obstacles. She 
could but try at least; tryingwould do no harm. 

So she whipped and coaxed Billy into a 
canter, and swept away through the moonlight, 
over the lonely road. It was very lonely. 
There was not a sound to be heard but the 
heavy plunges of the horse through the drifted 
snow, and the sighing of the wind through the 
trees. Her own shadow took strange shapes as 
it leaped along beside her on the moonlit bank 
and wall. The fields and woods stretched out 
each side of her in fantastic patches of light and 
shade, solitary and still. Gypsy was not afraid, 


she was too much troubled about Tom to be 
afraid ; but she had a bleak, cold, deserted 
feeling which made that singular ride one long 
to be remembered. She was haunted by vague, 
half-formed fears for Tom, too; by new and 
horrible mistrust of him ; by a dread that she 
should be too late. But if she were not too 
late, what then ? She hardly knew what then. 
She had formed no plans as to what she should 
do or say. She had come because she could 
not help it; she was going on because she 
could not help it. Tom might not listen to 
her ; he might be very angry ; it might do 
more harm than good that she had come. But 
here she was, and she trusted to her own 
instinct to guide her. Gypsy’s instincts were, 
however, sad blunders sometimes. Whether 
this one was a blunder or something else, the 
event only would prove. 

The event came very near not proving at all. 
She had ridden through the last patch of pine 
woods, and come out into a broad stretch of 
light, level ground, from which the main road 


17 


was faintly visible, winding away to East York- 
bury tavern. Billy, thoroughly exhausted, was 
panting painfully, head hanging, and ears 
lopped down ; his heavy plunges had changed 
into a feeble trot ; the trot was settling gradu- 



made up his 


mind to walk, that was the end of him. When 
hark! — yes, the sound of sleigh-bells, and the 
voices of unseen drivers upon the winding road. 
Gypsy uttered a little cry, and threw her 


arms about the horse’s neck, as if he had been 


human. 

“ Oh, Billy, please! Can’t you go a little 
faster? I don’t want Tom to go.” And Billy 
pleased. Whether he understood what Tom 
had to do with it I cannot state; but at the 
word he jerked his drooping head with a snort, 
and broke away like a wild thing under the 
touch of Gypsy’s whip. 

The cutter with its fleet bay was just slewing 
past the cart-road, when an apparition of a girl 
on a white horse galloped up, and Francis reined 
in with a shout. v 


118 


She made a picture; her net had come off, 
and her hair was blown back from her face in 
the strong wind ; her cheeks were scarlet, her 
lips a little pale, and her eyes on fire. For an 
instant she sat perfectly still upon the horse, 
and Tom stared. 

“Tom,” she said then, softly. 

“ Gypsy Breynton — you ! ” Tom finished by 
a word which I will not repeat ; there was 
nothing wrong about it, but it was not as elegant 
as it might have been, and one gets enough of 
college slang in real life without putting it into 
print when it can be avoided. 

“Yes, it’s I. Please look here a minute.” 

Tom sprang out into the snow, and left 
Francis growling at the delay. Gypsy leaned 
down over old Billy’s neck, and put her hand 
upon Tom’s shoulder. It was almost purple 
from the cold, for in her haste she had come 
off without her mittens, and had driven all 
the way in cold, thin gloves. 

“ If you only would n’t ! I don’t want you to 
go — I mean — please, Tom dear, come home. 


19 


Sarah says East Yorkbury ’s such a dreadful 
place, and so I harnessed Billy and came over 
on the cart-road, and I do hope you won’t be 
angry ! ” blundered poor Gypsy, her cheeks 
very red and her lips very pale. 

Tom was angry — very angry. For a moment 
he only shut up his lips and looked down at the 
little purple hand that trembled on his shoulder, 
as if he were trying to keep back some dreadful 
words. If it had not been so very purple and 
little, and if it had not been so strange a sight 
to see Gypsy tremble, he might have said worse 
than he did. 

“ Who ’s been telling you I was going to East 
Yorkbury?” he said, between his teeth. 

“Nobody told me, Tom; I guessed it. To 
think of you over in that tavern, with all those 
drunken — Oh, Tom, I did hope you wouldn’t 
be angry, and would please to come back with 
me!” 

“ Hurry up, Breynton,” called Francis from 
the sleigh ; “ don’t keep a fellow waiting. Why 
did n’t Gypsy do her talking before you started ? 


120 


I ’m glad my sister minds her own business, and 
lets mine alone ! ” 

Tom pushed off the purple hand from his 
shoulder. 

“ Gypsy, you must go right straight home. I 
am angry, and you ’ve done a very silly thing. 
I don’t want you inquiring into my affairs, and 
meddling with them like this, and you may 
remember it next time. Here, take my mittens, 
and get home as fast as you can.” 

With that he sprang into the sleigh and left 
her. 

If he had struck her, Gypsy could not have 
felt worse. Never had Tom spoken so to her — 
never, since she was a baby and used to stamp 
on his kites and throw his boats down the well. 
It seemed as if it were more than she could 
bear. Billy, glad to turn his face homewards, 
started briskly away ; and she just threw down 
the reins, and put her arms about his huge, 
warm neck, and cried as hard as if her heart 
would break. 

How far she had gone she did not exactly 


12 1 


know; she was still riding on with her face 
hidden in Billy’s mane, and she was still sobbing 
as Gypsy very seldom sobbed, when the first she 
knew there was a strong hand on Billy’s bridle, 
and another about her neck, and two arms lifted 
her right off the saddle, and there was Tom. 

“Oh, Tom, I didn’t mean to — I didn’t 
really mean to make you angry. I felt so 
badly about your going, and I thought — ” 

“ Gypsy, look up here.” 

Gypsy looked up. 

“ I was a heathen, and the next time I speak 
so to you, I ’ll give you leave to chop my tongue 
out with a hatchet. Now let ’s go home.” 


122 



just the best fun. Francis knows a way of fla- 
vouring the candy with lemon, and we ’re going 
to try it. Besides, Delia Guest and Bob are 
coming, and the Holmans.” 

“ Well, I ’m afraid I can’t. I should love to, 
dearly, but — ” 

“ Not come ! Well, I should like to know ! ” 

“ I think I ’d better stay with Tom.” 


23 


“ Let Tom come too, of course.” 

“ He would like to, but he has a cold, and 
could n’t go out in this snow-storm. He would 
miss me if I went, and be lonely, — that is, I 
can play checkers with him. Besides, I like 
to make it as nice as I can for him when he is 
at home, so as to — ” 

“To what? ” 

“ Keep him in evenings.” 

Those four words had come to rule all Gyp- 
sy’s plans and words and thoughts. It seemed 
strange that Tom’s vacation, to which she 
had looked forward so long, and of which she 
had dreamed as if it were some beautiful fairy 
tale, should end in that. Into Gypsy’s merry, 
thoughtless heart the new anxiety and the new 
pain crept like a chill ; it took time for her to 
get used to it ; but the queer thing about it was, 
she thought, that when she had become used to 
it, it seemed as if it had always been there. 

For a while after the East Yorkbury under- 
taking, Tom avoided Francis, kept very much 
at home with his mother and Gypsy, and seemed 


124 


so sober and sorry and ashamed that Gypsy’s 
heart ached for him. Whatever the faults into 
which he had fallen at college, — and it was 
quite probable that she did not know the worst 
of them, — Tom was very far from being a 
thoroughly bad boy. Until he went to New 
Haven, he had known nothing worse than 
Yorkbury temptations, and had been helped 
every day of his life by the happiest home and 
the most patient love that a boy could desire. 
To go out from such a home in all the eagerness 
and ignorance of seventeen young years, into 
Yale College, is very much like walking into a 
furnace. It needs what Tom had not, — what 
Gypsy had vaguely felt from the beginning that 
he ought to have, — principle , to come out of it 
unsinged. Tom had no deeper principle than 
his own generous impulses and quick sense of 
honour ; even these had been severely put to the 
test ; the smell of the fire had passed upon him. 
Although he was much given to lecturing 
thoughtless Gypsy in his superior elder-broth- 
erly way, yet in many respects he was much 


125 


like her. A little more reserved ; somewhat 
better able to say the right thing, or not to say 
anything if necessary; by right of four years’ 
seniority making fewer blunders, but, like her, 
quick to do wrong or right on a moment’s im- 
pulse, sorry for his faults and willing to say so, 
and very likely to do the same thing over 
to-morrow; especially — and herein lay the key 
to the worst of him — sufficiently determined 
to get the fun out of life, come what might. 
Indeed, Gypsy felt so much sympathy with 
him that it was an effort to scold him some- 
times. 

“ I hate to have you do such things, you 
know,” she said one day when Tom had been 
confiding to her the story of a certain escapade 
with his tutor, which was, like a great many 
wrong things in this world, undeniably funny ; 
“ but it makes me want to go to college terribly. 
How I should act ! I know just as well I 
should go head first into all the rushes, and put 
pins in the Prof.’s chairs, and — no, I would n’t 
haze, because that ’s mean ; but I should rather 


126 






















































♦ 
















































go to an oyster supper than study, and I should 
get suspended in three weeks, and then come 
home to be sorry, and I suppose it is fortunate 
for the institution that I ’m not a boy ! ” 

Which certainly was not the wisest thing she 
could have said, and she was sorry before the 
words were off her lips. 

As I said, for a while Tom stayed at home 
and let Francis alone ; he threw away his cigars, 
studied hard in the mornings, played checkers 
in the evenings, took the children to ride in the 
afternoons, pushed the cat through the stove- 
pipe, experimented on Mrs. Surly’s puppy, 
helped his mother stone the raisins for her pud- 
dings, read “ Guy Mannering ” aloud to Gypsy, 
helped his father at the store, became, in a 
word, the old merry, thoughtful, generous Tom, 
and Gypsy was happy. 

Not so happy, though, that she ceased to 
work and plan to keep him with her, or ever 
lost the dull, new sense of uneasiness and care. 
Not so happy as to be thoroughly taken by 
surprise when restless Tom wearied of his quiet 


9 


129 


life and good resolves, and something happened 
far worse than anything which had happened 
yet ; far worse than anything that she had ever 
thought cguld happen to Tom. 

It was only two days before the short vacation 
ended. Tom had gone to a lyceum lecture that 
evening with Francis Rowe. He would be 
home at ten o’clock, he said, or a quarter-past 
ten at the latest. It was the family custom to 
break up early. Mr. Breynton was apt to be 
sleepy, his wife tired, and Gypsy was always 
ready for bed ; so that the house was usually 
still soon after nine. On this night Mrs. 
Breynton had a headache (it sometimes seemed 
to Gypsy that her mother had a great many 
headaches of late), and it was rather dull with- 
out Tom, so that they separated even earlier 
than usual. By half-past nine they were prob- 
ably all asleep. 

Gypsy had a remarkably unpleasant dream. 
She thought that she was standing on the edge 
of a huge circular chasm lined with winding 
stairs, which gave back a hollow, ugly echo to 


130 


the foot. They seemed to be built of ancient 
wood, worm-eaten and moss-grown; to have 
stood there for centuries, crumbling away and 
winding down into utter darkness. The hor- 
rible thing about them was that nobody knew 
what was at the bottom. Another horrible 
thing was that nobody who went down ever 
came up. While she stood peering over the 
edge and shivering, Tom pushed by her with a 
cry and sprang into the chasm, and began to 
leap down the hideous stairway. She stretched 
out her arms to him, calling him by name, but 
he did not or would not hear her. She leaped 
down after him, and, impelled by the fearful, 
dizzy motion, kept winding on and could not 
stop. She called him, but he did not answer. 
He was always just ahead of her, but never 
within her reach. He shot on and down, and 
the hollow echo of his leaping steps came back, 
and the daylight dimmed and his form grew faint 
and faded out of her sight, and darkness fell, and 
only the echoes were left, which weakened and 
grew thin, and were lost in utter silence. 


13 


She started up with a cry of terror which 
woke her. A faint moonbeam was falling in 
upon the bed. She remembered that the moon 
rose late that night, and could not light her 
room till after ten. She was just getting up to 
see what time it was when she heard the kitchen 
clock strike the half-hour. She remembered 
Tom, and was wide awake at once. He had 
undoubtedly come in while she was asleep, — 
very likely his steps coming up the stairs had 
given her that ugly dream ; still she thought 
she should go to sleep a little more comfortably 
to feel sure. So she opened her door softly and 
looked out into the entry; all was still. She 
stepped on tiptoe to Tom’s room ; the door was 
open ; the room was empty. 

Well, only a quarter of an hour after time. 
But it was a singularly late lyceum lecture. 
And he said he should certainly be at home. 

She went back to her own room and crept 
shivering into bed, but she could not sleep ; she 
rose and went to the window: both yard and 
street lay hushed and solitary in the moonlight ; 


132 


no human being was in sight; not a sound was 
to be heard but the moaning of the wind. The 
lecture must be over long ago, for the lights 
were out in Mrs. Surly’s house, and her board- 
ers always went to the lyceum. It must have 
been over an hour ago. Where could he be? 

Gypsy began to be frightened. Her cheeks 
grew hot and her hands grew cold ; she jumped 
up and began to walk across the room as fast as 
she could walk; she came back and sat down 
again, and looked again into the yard and up 
the moonlit street, and jumped up and paced 
the room again. Once a drunken singer in the 
street passed by the house ; her cheeks grew 
hotter and her hands grew colder. She had 
grown too restless for the narrow room, so she 
threw her dress and shawl about her, went softly 
out, and sat down on the stairs where she could 
watch the door. 

If Tom only had not gone with Francis! If 
she could have got up a candy-pull and kept 
him at home? If she had gone to the lecture 
with him? If he should have gone to East 
133 


Yorkbury? If he were playing billiards some- 
where now, such wretched drunken faces all 
around him as she had sometimes seen in the 
alleys on the way to Peace Maythorne’s room? 
If he should become a gambler, or worse? If 
he should grow up into such a man as Francis, — 
Tomt What would her mother say? — poor 
mother, she had been looking so pale lately, and 
troubled. Should she call her and tell her that 
Tom had not come home? What would her 
father say? 

And that was the worst of all. What would 
he? No, she must not call them; it would be 
so terrible between him and Tom if anything 
had gone wrong. There was nothing to be 
done but for her to keep awake till Tom came, 
and let him quietly in. Eleven o’clock. Would 
he never come? 

She began to be very cold sitting there, so 
she stole out to the kitchen stove to try to warm 
herself by the remains of the evening fire ; then, 
afraid that Tom would come while she was out 
there, she went back to her post upon the stairs. 


134 



The entry was dark except for a dull patch 
of moonshine that struggled in through the 
curtained side-lights and lay pale upon the 
floor. In the corners the shadows were heavy. 
Under the stairs the shadows were black. Now 
and then a board creaked somewhere, or a 


i3S 


mouse rattled past unseen in the wall. It is 
dreary at best to be the only waking thing at 
midnight in a silent house. The vague sense 
of uneasiness about Tom, fearing she knew not 
what, waiting she knew not why ; the dread that 
her father might come out and find her there ; 
the dread of what would happen if he should 
meet Tom coming in ; pictures of his stern, 
shocked face and Tom’s angry eyes, — all this 
made that watch upon the stairs about as mis- 
erable an hour as Gypsy had ever passed. 

Half-past eleven. How still it was ! Tom 
had never been out so late as this before. 

Twelve o’clock. Could some accident have 
happened to him? Was it possible? Ought 
she t4i.call her mother? Should she wait a little 
longer, or — What was that? Footsteps! 
She crept softly down the stairs, and peered 
through the side-lights. 

Yes, footsteps, — heavy, slow, irregular, shuf- 
fling blindly through the snow. But Tom 
walked like a man, with a spring in his firm, 
strong tread. That man with his hat pulled 


l 36 


over his eyes, with his coat turned wrong side 
out, who slouched up to the door and fumbled 
for the handle, — was that Tom? 

Gypsy turned the latch without noise, and 
the man muttered some incoherent words, and 
reeled in, and fell heavily upon the stairs, — and 
it was Tom. 

Gypsy just dropped her hands and looked. 
If some one had bayoneted her dead there 
against the wall, she could not have stood more 
still. She could feel the hot blood rush into her 
heart, and rush away again ; her head swam 
round dizzily, and for a moment she had a fancy 
that she was suffocating. Whatever the feeling 
was, it passed in a moment, and she stepped up 
and touched Tom on the shoulder. 

He muttered that her hands were cold, and 
that he wanted another glass. 

“ Tom,” she said, under her breath, “ Tom 
dear, come up to bed.” 

Tom looked at her stupidly, and tried to 
rise, but staggered against the banisters. His 
heavy boots hit the stairs loudly, and the old 


37 


mahogany of the banisters creaked from top to 
bottom. 

“ Oh, father will hear, father will hear ! ” 
whispered Gypsy, in an agony. “ Lean on me, 



now try again.” 


Tom stood up and leaned upon her shoulder, 
— the strong fellow with his six feet of manli- 
ness, — and Gypsy helped him up the stairs. 
Sometimes she had to stop to take breath and 
gather strength. Sometimes the dizziness came 
back to her head, and she thought that she was 
falling. Twice Tom reeled against the wall, and 
she listened for her father’s opening door, and 
all the colour went out of her cheeks and lips. 
Once Tom griped her shoulder so that she 
nearly cried out with the pain. 

But they reached the top of the stairs, and 
reached his room, and shut the door, and had 
wakened no one. Tom threw himself upon the 
bed and asked for water. Gypsy hurried to the 
wash-stand, filled his mug, and brought it to 
him. But he had fallen into a heavy, drunken 
sleep. 


138 



“ "X/* OU see, Peace, I used to be so proud of 
Tom.” 

Peace saw. 

“ I used to keep thinking how much better 
he was than the other girls’ brothers, and how 
good he was, and that he never went with the 
wild boys, and that he would stand so high at 
college, and make mother so glad and all, and 
to have it come to — that .” 

Peace did not know what “ that ” was ; 
Gypsy had never told her; she did not like 
to ask. 

“ I don’t suppose you understand what I am 
talking about,” said Gypsy, with heightened 


139 


colour, “ but the fact is, I can’t bear to say it, — 
not so much as to say it, Peace. It was so 
terrible, and I had never known nor suspected ; 
but, Peace Maythorne, he said it never hap- 
pened but once before, — he said so. He was sick 
after it the next morning, because the whisky 
was so bad — there ! I might have known I 
could n’t help letting it out, — just like me ! ” 

Peace gave her one of her own beautiful 
answers ; she took her hand and held it softly, 
and did not say a word. Gypsy began to wink. 

“ Well, I knew you ’d feel badly for me ; you 
always do. I wish I’d told you before. It 
helps me to have you sorry for me somehow; 
it goes all over me. One little kiss? — there! 
Now I ’m going to tell you about it. It won’t 
bother you to death? Well, then, you see, 
Peace Maythorne, I lay awake till two o’clock 
that night, I felt so. I would n’t live that night 
over again, — why, not for anything in this 
world. Well, the next morning he felt sick, 
but he said he had a headache, which was true, 
and he lay in bed till after breakfast and then 


140 


got up, so that father should n’t suspect. You 
see that would be so dreadful. Father loves 
Tom, and he ’s real good, but he never knows 
how to go at him. He makes Tom angry 
and never understands, and then Tom is dis- 
respectful, and mother looks, and I cry, and 
we have an awful time. So Tom and I weren’t 
either of us going to tell him. But mother 
knows, I know, for she ’s been up in her room 
crying ever so much, and she and Tom had a 
long talk before he went back. I guess he told 
her, — he thinks the world of mother, and was 
so sorry, and hates to cheat so. Oh, he was 
so sorry ! He did n’t look any more like Tom 
the next day, and kept by himself, and his eyes, 
— you know he has such beautiful eyes, Peace, 
and so bright, — well, his eyes were so ashamed, 
I thought I should cry right out to look at 
them. I can’t bear to have Tom ashamed. 
Well, then it came night, and he had been 
alone all day, and I went up into his room, 
and that’s what I started to tell you about. 
You ’re not tired of me yet? ” 


141 


“Not a bit, dear.” 

“ Well, I went up, and there he sat alone in 
the dark and cold ; there was a little red sparkle 
of light through the damper, but the fire was 
almost out. So said I, ‘ Tom.’ softly. He had 
his elbows on the table and his head down. 
‘What do you want?’ said he, and never looked 
up. ‘ I want to see you, Tom. I have n’t seen 
you all day hardly.’ Then he said something 
that I can ’t bear to think about, Peace May- 
thorne, — not even to think about. ‘ I should n’t 
think you ’d ever w r ant to see me again. I wish 
I were out of the world and out of your way ; * 
that ’s what he said. I would n’t have you 
think I ’m crying, though, — where ’s my hand- 
kerchief, for pity’s sake? And what do you 
suppose I did ? — like a little goose ! Why, 
I just jumped into his lap. I did, I jumped 
into his lap right off, and I had come up ex- 
pecting to talk soberly at him and scold him, 
and I had to go and do that, and that was the 
end of me ! ” 

“ What did he do? ” said Peace, smiling, but, 


142 


strangely enough, hunting for her handker- 
chief, too. 

“Do? Well, he had to lift up his head, any- 
way; he couldn’t help him- 
self. So I saw his face in 
the red sparkle from the 
damper, and it was just as 
white, and I threw my arms 
straight around his neck, — 

I know I choked him dread- 
fully ! — and said he, ‘ Gypsy, 
were n’t you ashamed of me, 

— ashamed to have me for a 
brother? ’ 

“‘Yes, Tom/ said I, ‘I 
was ashamed of you last 
night,’ — for I could n’t tell a 
lie you see, anyway. Down 
went his head again on the 
table, — only my arms were in the way, and it 
hurt, and I squealed, and so he had to take it 
up again. ‘ Why don’t you take your arms off, 
Gypsy? I ’m not fit to have them there. Why 



143 


don’t you take them off? * I said I was very 
comfortable, and I was going to keep them 
there. ‘ But you ’re ashamed of me,’ said he, 
‘ and you ought to be ! ’ 

‘“No, Tom, I’m not ashamed of you now. 
I was last night. I ’m not a bit ashamed now, 
because you are sorry.’ And what do you 
suppose he said?” 

“ I could n’t guess.” 

“ He held up his head and looked into my 
eyes. ‘You don’t mean to say that you’re 
going to love me as much as you did before ? * 
And, Peace, I did ; I could n’t help it if I 
couldn't , you know, only don’t you ever tell, 
but said I, ‘ Tom Breynton, I love you a great 
deal more.’ That’s what I said, like a little 
simpleton.” 

“What did he say? ” 

“ Say? He did n’t say a word for so long I 
was frightened half out of my wits. He just 
hid his face up against my hair (my net was 
coming off, — you know it always is), and, 
Peace Maythorne, I do believe he was crying. 


144 


I don’t know. I never saw Tom cry. He 
did n’t make any noise about it, the way girls 
do, though. At last, said he, all of a sudden, 
‘ Gypsy, I am sorry. I never got drunk but 
once before; that was one night when I went 
out with Hall. I don’t see how I ever came to 
do it, but Rowe kept filling up my tumbler. 
The worst of it is, mother and you. I wish 
you would n’t be so good to a fellow.’ And 
then, Peace, he coughed so, that I thought he 
was going to have a consumption. So by-and- 
by I began to pat him on the back (he always 
says I treat him as if he were a great Maltese 
cat), and I said I was going to be good to him ; 
as good as I could be ; terribly good ; a cherub ; 
a pretty pink cherub with wings ; would he give 
me a kiss? So he gave me a kiss, and I snug- 
gled up in his arms just as if nothing had 
happened, and we had the nicest little talk, and 
he told me ever so much, Peace, that I can’t 
tell you, about college, and how hard it was 
to do right, and how sorry he felt afterwards, 
and how he did things and did n’t think, — just 

IO 


MS 


like me, for all the world, and I don’t suppose 
I should be half as good as he if I went to col- 
lege, — and how sometimes he thought about 
me, and did n’t go off with Hall because I should 
be sorry. Now, Peace Maythorne, I wonder 
if you know how that made me feel.” 

“ I think I do.” 

“ Well, I hope you do, for I could n’t tell 
you possibly. Anyway, it made up for that 
dreadful night out on the stairs, and for going 
to East Yorkbury, and for doing things when I 
wanted to do something else, and for all the 
worry and trouble. And I guess I shall write 
him a few more letters this term than I did last, 
if I know myself intimately. 

“ Well, after we had talked a while, father 
began to call, downstairs, to know why we 
didn’t come down (mother did n’t, because she 
knew what we were about well enough ; she 
always knows things without having to be 
told) ; so I started to go. 

“Then I stopped. ‘Tom,’ said I, e l told 
you I loved you more than ever, and I do. But 


146 


there ’s another thing. I used to be — proud 
of you.’ You ought to have seen his eyes ! 

‘ Well, you shall be proud of me again some 
day.’ I told him that \yas just what I meant to 
be, but that I did wish I could be real sure. 
Then he fired up like everything, and wanted 
to know if I thought he meant to get drunk 
again ; of course he should n’t ; he had n’t any 
thoughts of it; he shouldn’t have this time if 
the whisky had n’t been so bad. Well, you 
see, I knew he might, for all that, so I told 
him I wished he would promise me something. 
‘What is it?’ said he. I told him it was that 
he would n’t ever touch the old thing, nor any 
other old thing that made people drunk, — not 
a bit, not a drop, ever. He did n’t like that 
very much, and he drew up his head and put on 
all his grown-up brother airs, just as he looks 
when he scolds me for tearing my dresses, and 
said he never made promises. But I looked at 
his face in the little red sparkle from the 
damper, and stood stock still. ‘ What are you 
waiting for?’ said he. I said I was waiting for 


*47 


that promise. He said I should n’t have it, and 
it was of no use waiting ; I ought to trust him 
better than that. He was n’t going to demean 
himself by promising. I did n’t know exactly 
what demean meant, so I looked it out in the 
Dictionary before I went to bed.” 

“But you didn’t go?” 

“ No, I guess I did n’t. I just stood. I 
guess I stood there almost ten minutes. ‘ You ’d 
better go,’ said he, by-and-by, and I never said 
a word. Pretty soon I thought it was getting 
about time to tease, — I do hate to tease, 
though. So I jumped into his arms again 
before he knew it, and began to say ‘ Please, 
Tom,’ as hard as ever I could. ‘ Please what?’ 
said he. I was n’t going to answer such a silly 
question as that, so I pulled his head down into 
the red sparkle so as to see his face. It was 
red one minute and white the next, and I saw 
the promise coming all over it, so I waited. 
‘ Well,’ said he, ‘ I don’t see but I shall have 
to, to get rid of you. I promise.’ ” 

“ What did you do? ” 


148 





































































































































“Strangled him. Just strangled him with my 
two arms. And then — let me see — oh, then 
I got up and jumped up and down, and after 
that we went downstairs and popped corn.” 

“ How glad you ought to be,” said Peace. 

“ Well, I suppose I am. I don’t believe he 
will drink any more. Tom never breaks his 
word, — never. Besides, he has been back now 
two weeks, and he wrote me yesterday that he 
had n’t touched a drop. I don’t trouble about 
that any more; but, Peace, I never feel quite 
safe.” 

“ I see.” 

“ Tom means to do right and is so good, and 
then forgets, — just like me, you know, only 
I ’m not good, and then he is so handsome. 
College is a dreadful place, and I wish he were 
through and home again. Then I wish he and 
father got along better, and I ’m always afraid 
something will go wrong between them. Then, 
lately, there ’s mother.” 

“What about her?” 

“ She has so many headaches, I can’t go to 


her about Tom nor anything, as I used to, for 
fear of making her feel worse. If I did n’t have 
you, I don’t know what would become of me. 
I always must have somebody to talk to. There 
are n’t any girls here that I ever say anything 
sober to. There ’s Joy, to be sure, but she 
is off in Boston, and I can’t write things out 
in letters ; besides, I should n’t want to tell 
her about Tom. I love Joy dearly, but she 
would n’t do for that. Peace, I ’m sort of 
troubled about mother.” 

“ I ’m real sorry,” said Peace, in her gentle 
way, and the three simple words seemed to 
mean a great deal more than they would if any- 
body else said them ; “ perhaps she will be 
better when the spring comes.” 

Gypsy said that she hoped so, rather absently, 
and then there was a silence. 

“ Do you know,” said Peace, at last, 
“ that you are growing different, Gypsy, — 
older? ” 

“ Am I ? How funny ! Well, I have a 
great many more thoughts to think than I used 


*52 


to. I wonder if you remember the sunbeam 
that came through the hole in the curtain one 
day before Tom came home?” 

“ Oh, yes, very well.” 

“ So do I. I suppose I ’m beginning to find 
out how they feel rainy days.” 

Peace smiled, and Gypsy thrummed on the 
window-sill a moment. 

“ And you have never had anything but 
rainy days ! ” 

“ The sun is there, you know, all the same, 
whether it rains or not,” said Peace, half to 
Gypsy, half to herself. 

“ It ’s there because you make it. If I were 
in your place, I should n’t make any. My ! how 
horrid and wicked I should be.” 

“ Why,” said Peace, “ I am sure I have plenty 
of things to be thankful for.” 

“ Aunt Jane, for instance?” 

Peace coloured, for at that very moment Aunt 
Jane opened the door. She said good-after- 
noon curtly enough. She felt instinctively that 
Gypsy did not like her ; which was by no means 


153 


strange, for Gypsy was not apt to take the 
greatest pains to conceal her opinion of people. 

“ Would it trouble you too much to fix the 
fire a little?” said Peace, gently; “I have been 
so cold, somehow, since this change in the 
weather.” 

“ I don’t know as it makes any difference 
whether it troubles me or not,” said Aunt Jane, 
in her hard way, tripping over the coal-hod and 
rattling the poker with what she was pleased to 
term an “ energy,” that went through the 
nerves of Peace like a knife. “ There ! I ’m 
terrible hurried over that dress of Miss Guest’s, 
and I can’t stop to bother over it any longer. 
I guess that will do. I can’t see for the life of 
me what makes you so shivery.” 

Miss Jane had just been to the store for a 
spool of thread, and the rapid walk and bracing 
air had set her healthy blood to circulating 
freely; to look from her to the shrunken, pal- 
lid figure on the bed, one would not perhaps 
wonder that she did not see. 

“ Peace Maythorne ! ” broke out indignant 


: 54 


Gypsy, determined to say something this time ; 
“ you have n’t but one comforter on your bed 
besides the quilt.” 

Peace answered only with a quick hand on 
Gypsy’s mouth. 

“One comforter?” spoke up Aunt Jane. 
“ Well, it ’s thick enough for me, and what is 
enough for me has got to be enough for her, for 
all I see, as long as there ’s no hands but mine 
to support the two of us. I should like to know 
who thinks I can afford new ones for her, with 
cotton-battin’ the price it is now-a-days, and all 
my old pieces sold to the paper-man, to say 
nothing of where ’s the time to come from to 
patch one up.” 

Probably Aunt Jane could not afford mate- 
rials or time for a comforter; there were the 
rents and food and clothing and fuel to take her 
hard-earned money. While Gypsy’s eyes 
flashed with anger at her way of expressing it, 
yet she could not doubt that she had spoken 
truth, and perplexed her brain with plans to 
supply the need. Peace must have a comforter. 

15s 


* 


But Peace could not bear to have things given 
to her. She decided to talk it over with her 
mother; she always found ways to do things 
when other people failed. Nobody knew how 
she managed it, but a few days after, Peace 
had the comforter on her bed, and her eyes 
thanked Gypsy, though she did not say a word 
about it. 

Peace Maythorne’s room, with its golden sun- 
light and its quiet face, was a sort of tabernacle 
to Gypsy. It hushed her and helped her as 
nothing else ever did. It reduced all her wild 
plans to order. It rebuked her mad impulses 
and thoughtless words. It taught her how best 
to work and hope for Tom. It made the new- 
ness and the strangeness of her trouble easier 
to bear. Most of all, the pitiful contrast of it 
with the pleasant places into which her own 
lines had fallen, silenced all grumbling, made 
her very thankful. She had depended more on 
Peace of late, since she had been troubled for 
Tom, and since those headaches of her mother’s 
had begun to be so frequent. Almost all of 

* 5 6 


her anxiety and perplexity had been shared with 
Peace; as she said, she could not very well 
help it. But when Tom had been back at col- 
lege a few weeks, something new came up, 
which she did not tell her nor any one. The 
reasons for this she could hardly have explained ; 
but she felt very sure that she preferred to keep 
it to herself. 

It was a letter from Tom. A short letter, 
very pleasant, like all Tom’s letters, and at first 
sight a very unimportant one : — 

Dear Gypsy, — Am hurried to death over 
my Euclid, and can’t write much this morning. 
My stand is better than last term, but it might 
be decidedly higher yet. I flunked dead in 
Euclid yesterday, and that is why I mean to 
study to-day on it. 

How is it about those headaches of mother’s? 
Father sent me a package of new-style French 
envelopes from the store the other day; very 
good in him, and I am, his affectionately, T. Did 
you see Winnie’s letter to me that mother wrote 


*57 


for him? It contained the extraordinary infor- 
mation that you had smashed potatoes for dinner, 
and I could n’t have any ; that he was five years 
old, and that Tom had gone to college. Hall’s 
sister has n’t written to him but once since he has 
been back. Your two letters a week are jolly. 
Sometimes when I have n’t anything to do, I take 
them out and read them all over. We had a 
tip-top rush with the Sophs yesterday, — beat 
them, of course. A fellow in our house has got 
into a row with one of the Profs., and will be 
rusticated to pay for it. 

Love to all. I must go to cramming now on 
that Euclid. Hall opened a bottle of Old Yriarte 
last night, and it was tough work looking on and 
being laughed at; but a promise is a promise. 

Very respectfully, your ob’t servant, 

T. Breynton. 

P. S. See here. I wonder if you have a little 
money you could lend a fellow for a few weeks. 
The state of my finances is somewhat precarious, 
and I don’t dare to go to father just yet; he 
158 


won’t expect me to need more before the middle 
of the term. I hate to ask you, but the truth is 



there was a little bet with Hall, — about four 
dollars ; it was about a girl we met on Chapel 
Street, and I said if he bowed to her without an 
introduction, she would n’t return it, and I felt 


*59 


sure of winning (only I would n’t have taken the 
money) ; but she wasn’t the lady she looked, and 
she bowed, and I lost. Now the bother of it is, 
Hall wants his money, and I have n’t it to give 
him ; I have some left, but it is due at the hat- 
ter’s this week. I feel real mean asking you, 
and you shall have your money back just as soon 
as father hands over. It is mean to bet, — yes, 
I know it without your telling me. I don’t very 
often do it. I shall keep clear of it after this. 
If you will help me out of this scrape and keep 
dark about it to father, you will be as good a 
sister as ever luckless scamp was blessed with. 
Please send as soon as possible. 

Gypsy locked up the letter in her desk where 
no one could see it, and sat down and thought 
about it. 

Tom had done wrong, — yes. But he was 
sorry, and the money must be paid in some 
way. She did not care in the least about keep- 
ing her money, if she could get him out of the 
difficulty, and perhaps prevent his doing the 

160 


same thing again. Certainly, if she refused, it 
would seem selfish and mean, and Tom would 
be vexed, and there would be an end of her 
influence over him. Moreover, her money was 
her own, and she was always allowed to spend 
it as she chose. 

But was it quite right to do it and tell no- 
body? To tell her father was out of the ques- 
tion. Her mother was locked into her room 
with a violent sick-headache. There was no one 
to tell. It seemed to be quite right, she 
thought. Poor Tom ! If he only would not 
get into so much trouble ! 

That very night a note was on its way to him. 

Dear Tom, — Here are four dollars. It 
is all I have, and you are welcome to it, only 
I ’m so sorry. I hate bets. Mother would 
feel badly, I ’m afraid, if she knew. She ’s 
real sick to-day. 

Your loving 

Gypsy. 

By return of mail came Tom’s answer. 

n 161 


Dear G., — You’re a diamond. I did not 
mean to take all you had. I promise you this 
is the last of my heavy betting. You are a 
good girl, and treat me better than I deserve, 
and make me ashamed of myself. T. 

And did she do just right? Perhaps one can 
hardly judge without being exactly in her place. 
Certainly the cases are rare in which it would 
be best for a girl to pay her brother’s wrong- 
fully contracted debts without her parents’ 
knowledge. The circumstances were peculiar, 
and whether she acted prudently or not, her 
motive was a noble and generous one. It was 
the nobleness and the generosity which touched 
Tom; which roused in him a fresh throb of love 
for her, and another good resolve. 

Two seeds worth sowing, certainly. 


162 



/^\NE day Gypsy was walking home from 
school with Sarah Rowe and Delia Guest, 
after the fashion of very young ladies, — with 
their arms interlaced about each other’s waists, 
chatting in the most confidential manner (it 
sounded very much like canary birds chirping) 
about blue ribbons and pink ribbons, bead nets 
and magic ruffles, flounces and tucks and spotted 
veils and a bewilderment of other abstruse 
subjects, — when a buggy drawn by a white 
horse drove furiously by. All at once the 
chirping stopped. 

“Why, Gypsy, that’s your father!” 

163 


“ My father? Where? What? I did n’t see.” 

“ No, she was looking the other way. 
There, — in that buggy ; he ’s most out of sight 
now. I wonder what he was driving so for ! ” 

“ Why, that is our buggy, sure enough ; and 
Billy, — I can always tell Billy because his tail 
is so short. Well, I never did see father drive 
like that before. I guess Tom would laugh.” 

“ Why, look ! he ’s turned off High Street.” 

“You can see him through the trees.” 

“Why! He’s stopped at — ” 

“ The doctor's /” 

Gypsy turned first red and then pale, and 
before the girls could say another word to her 
she had sprung away from them and was run- 
ning up the street, and was out of sight around 
the corner. 

She flew away like a bird, and reached the 
garden fence and climbed it, and bounded 
through the drifts, and rushed into the house, 
her hat hanging down her neck, her breath 
gone. In the entry she stopped. The house 
was very still. 


164 






. . 





























" Mother ! ” 

Nobody answered. 

“ Mother ! Mother ! Winnie ! ” 

But nobody answered that. She sprang up 
the stairs two at a time, and into her mother’s 
room. Winnie was curled up in the corner, 
looking very much frightened ; Patty was step- 
ping about the room, doing something with 
blankets and hot water. Mrs. Breynton was 
lying on the bed ; she was heavily muffled in 
the clothing, but she was shivering from head 
to foot; her cheeks were scarlet, and her eyes 
looked wild and unnatural. 

Gypsy stood still, very much frightened. 

“ It ’s the chills she ’s got,” said Patty, in a 
whisper ; “ she was took sudden, and yer 

fayther ’s gone for the docther ; may the Houly 
Mother presarve her, fur it ’s the sisther of me 
as was took the like o’ that, and was buried in a 
week, an’ tin small children lift widout a mither 
till their fayther married ’em one nixt month ; 
may the saints rest her soul ! ” 

Gypsy took off her things softly, sent Winnie 


167 


downstairs, quieted Patty’s heavy tread, and 
busied herself in doing what she could until the 
doctor came. She knew nothing about sick- 
ness, and she was thoroughly frightened by her 
mother’s looks. Mrs. Breynton scarcely no- 
ticed her, but tossed feverishly upon the pillow, 
asking now and then what could make the room 
so cold, and why the doctor did not come. 
Gypsy concluded that she must be kept quiet as 
well as warm ; so she finally dispensed with 
Patty, who was doing her noisy best, and had 
knocked over the washstand and three chairs 
within five minutes. When Mr. Breynton 
came in with the doctor, they found Gypsy sole 
nurse. “ She had arranged things with a 
womanliness and tact that were wonderful,” her 
father said afterwards. “ She must have been 
very much frightened, but she certainly did 
not show it. She was as gentle and thought- 
ful about the room as her mother might have 
been herself. I am sure I never supposed 
Gypsy capable of it, she is such a fly-away 
child.” 


1 68 


Fever, — yes, the doctor said. He could 
not tell with certainty of what sort, — typhus, 
very likely ; it had been in the system a long 
time. Had the patient been subject to head- 
aches of late? Yes? He thought so. Yes, yes, 
he understood matters. Aconite once every 
half-hour till the pulse was brought down. 

“Is she going to be very sick?” asked 
Gypsy, following him down to the door. The 
doctor shook his head mysteriously, and said 
that it was impossible to tell. He had seen 
enough of typhus fevers in his day, and he 
did not care to see any more. He hoped she 
would get through it. 

He was a thin little man, with a melancholy 
voice and lugubrious whiskers, and a remark- 
able way of smiling as if he had been telling 
her some excellent joke. Take him altogether, 
he in no wise enlivened Gypsy’s spirits. 

Hard days came after that. Mrs. Breynton 
grew worse and grew worse. The doctor 
shook his head and folded his powders, and 
called it an obstinate case, and meantime she 


169 


kept growing worse. Gypsy came out of 
school, put away her books, put on her slippers 
and a white apron, and went into the sick-room. 
She became the most delightful little nurse one 
could desire to have about, — gentle, quiet, 
thoughtful, quick to see what was wanted before 
it was asked for, a perfect sunbeam, keeping all 
her terrible fear to herself, and regular as a 
clock with the medicines. It was really curious. 
People looked on and said, “ What has become 
of blundering Gypsy?” But, after all, it was 
not hard to explain. Her love for her mother, 
like her love for Tom, sobered her. When 
Gypsy was very much in earnest , she could think. 

The best thing about her was her cheery way 
of hoping for the best; it is doubtful if her 
father once suspected that it was any more than 
the trustful ignorance of a light-hearted child, 
or that she had the least comprehension of the 
danger. But once, when she had been sent 
out to get the air, and had stolen away — a very 
quiet and pale little Gypsy — to Peace May- 
thorne, it all came out in a sudden, low cry : 


“ Peace Maythorne, don’t I know how sick 
she is? And not to dare to think I know, not 
to dare , Peace ! ” 

And Peace drew her right down into her 
arms and let her cry. 

Oh, yes, the days were hard. The doubt 
and suspense of them, the terrible helplessness 
and idle watching, the fears of one day bright- 
ening into hopes the next and fading into fears 
again, — there lay the sting. “ She is better 
to-day, — surely she is a little better.” “Not 
so well to-day, and the doctor’s face is grave. 
But she will have a better night, and to-morrow, 
— yes, she must be better to-morrow.” And 
to-morrow would come, and she would be no 
better. It used to seem to Gypsy that if they 
were going to lose her, it would be far easier to 
know it and face it. 

There was once that her courage gave way, 
and in genuine Gypsy fashion she blundered 
into saying something which might have led to 
serious consequences. 


It was just at twilight of one of Mrs. Breyn- 
ton’s worst days. Her husband had been called 
away to the store; Mrs. Rowe, who had been 
with her a part of the day, had gone home to 
supper, and the night watcher had not yet come. 
Gypsy was left alone with her, and she was 
sitting silently on a cricket by the hearth, wait- 
ing for any sound or motion from the bed. She 
thought that her mother was asleep, and was 
startled by hearing her speak suddenly, and in 
a more quiet and natural voice than she had 
had all day : — 

“ Gypsy, what is the matter? ” 

Gypsy drew back into the shadow, vexed 
with herself for having let the firelight fall on 
her tear-stained face. 

“ Come here a minute, Gypsy.” 

Gypsy went up to the bed, and knelt on the 
floor beside it, laying her face down by her 
mother’s hand. 

“Now tell me what you were crying about, 
my child.” 

“ Oh, nothing, mother ; that is to say, 


172 


nothing that — I mean, nothing you ought 
to know,” began Gypsy, choking down the 
sobs. 

“Were you crying about me?” 

Mrs. Breynton’s voice had that weak, appeal- 
ing accent so often heard in the voices of the 
sick, and which it is so hard to hear in the 
voices of those we love ; and when she spoke, 
she laid her hand — it had grown pitifully thin 
and white — softly upon Gypsy’s bowed head. 
It was too much for Gypsy. She broke into a 
sudden cry, and the bitter, incoherent words 
tumbled forth one upon another, half drowned 
in her sobbing. 

“ O mother, mother, I was afraid — I was 
thinking — what shall I do if you don’t get 
well? O mother, mother, mother!” Gypsy 
instantly knew what she had done. She sprang 
to her feet in terror. What would her father 
say? and the doctor? How could she have 
done it? How could she? 

But the quiet, natural voice spoke up again, 
very quietly and very naturally, and her mother 


173 


drew her face down upon the pillows, and tried 
to hush her sobs. 

“Never mind, Gypsy; you have done no 
harm. I know better than any one else how 
sick I am. And I am glad this has happened, 
for there is something I have wanted to say 
to you. Only, my child, please don’t cry so 
hard.” 

Gypsy understood that it was time for her 
to stop, and she stopped. 

“ If the end is coming,” said her mother, 
gently, — “I don’t seem to feel that it is 
yet, — but if it should, Gypsy, there is 
Tom.” 

Gypsy nestled closer to her on the pillow for 
answer. 

“ Gypsy, Tom must grow up a good man. I 
cannot have it any other way. But it will de- 
pend more on you than any other human being. 
A sister who will always love him, be gentle 
with him, be patient with him, be womanly and 
generous for him, teach him that he is a great 
deal dearer to her than she is to herself, — if he 


74 


has no mother, Gypsy, he must have that 
sister.” 

Gypsy raised her head, her tears quite gone, 
and said, speaking very solemnly, — 

“ Mother, whether you live or whether you 
die, I will be that sister.” 

That promise, made in the dim light of the 
sick-room, with the shadows nodding on the 
walls, and the shadow of the poor thin face 
beside her on the pillow, Gypsy will never 
forget. 

But God was merciful, and she did not die; 
and if she had, He would have been merciful 
still. To no one in the family was the experi- 
ence of those few weeks what it was to Gypsy. 
For the first time in her life she had looked into 
an open grave ; — for we never know nor can 
know what the words mean until we see one 
waiting for us or ours ; — for the first time in 
her life she had felt that any one very dear to 
her could die and life go on, and the future 
come, with always a face in it to be missed, and 
a touch to be longed for. For the first time in 


175 


her life, too, she had found out what it was to 
be very thankful; to fall on her knees with 
hidden face, the happy words dying on her 
lips for wonder that God should choose her for 
such rich blessing. 

Many times in these days she thought of 
her cousin Joy and her motherless life. She 
thought that she had understood it before, but 
now she found that she never had. She wrote 
to Joy once and told her so. 

But the fever had done its work thoroughly, 
and Mrs. Breynton did not recover as fast as 
they had hoped. She seemed to be very much 
shattered by it, and it was many weeks before 
she was able to leave her bed. After the 
watchers had been given up, and the nurses 
had gone, and the neighbours began to come 
in less frequently to offer help, Gypsy was busy 
enough. And it was then that there came the 
trial to her patience and good temper. She 
must be nurse, and she must be housekeeper; 
she must look after Winnie, — and it did seem 
as if that young gentleman made it a serious 


176 


study to require looking after at least once in 
every five minutes; she must try to make 
things pleasant for her father, and she must 
write to Tom. Here lay the rub. It was 
almost impossible to get time to do it. Her 
mother’s toast must be made, and her father’s 
stockings must be darned; Patty, driven with 
the extra work, must be helped to set the 
table and wash the dishes ; Winnie must be 
picked out of the hogshead and the flour-barrel 
and the coal-bin, cajoled away from the mo- 
lasses-jug, washed and brushed and mended, 
respectfully entreated not to stamp through 
the garret floor while mother was sleeping, 
and coerced into desisting from pounding 
Patty with the broom-handle and two pokers. 
And writing to Tom was obviously more 
pleasant. 

We cannot always do our sowing where we 
like and as we like ; Providence sometimes 
ploughs a rut for us, and all we have to do is to 
walk in it; Gypsy found this out before her 
mother had been sick a month. 


12 


*77 


But there is almost always a gust of wind or 
a bird to scatter the grain a little. 

Several years after, Gypsy was one day look- 
ing over Tom’s desk for an envelope, when she 
came to some bits of paper carefully folded by 
themselves. Seeing the handwriting she pulled 
them out. 

“Why, Tom Breynton ! you never kept 
these all this time ! ” 

“Rather guess I did, and I would n’t part 
with them for a good deal ; I ’d rather lose all 
your other letters first. Did n’t I know well 
enough how you used to write them when you 
ought to be abed, and how tired you were, and 
hurried and bothered? Well, I guess I did; 
here, put them back where you found them, 
Miss ! ” 

They were the tiny notes and scraps of mes- 
sages which Gypsy had written while her 
mother was sick. 

“ Gypsy,” said Winnie one day, stamping 
into the room, slamming the door, upsetting two 
chairs and a table, just as Gypsy had drawn the 


178 


shutters for her mothers afternoon nap,— 
“where’s my shaving-brush, I ’d like to know? 
I did n’t shaved this week, nor last month, and 



father shaves every day, and you don’t know 
anything about it, ’cause you ’re a girl. Now 
where is it, sir?” 

“ Oh, dear,” said Gypsy, hushing him up, 


79 


u 1 did hope you ’d forget that brush. You ’ve 
brushed your teeth and your shoes and your 
hair with it, besides using it to paint the look- 
ing-glass with flour paste, and rub vinegar all 
over the cat, and — ” 

Winnie interrupted by severely signifying that 
what he had done with it, or was going to do 
with it, was of no consequence : he should like 
the brush ; “ if he did n’t have that brush, he ’d 
squeal, he ’d stamp, he ’d pound, he ’d thump, 
he ’d holler awful ; would she let him have the 
brush? ” 

It was the only way of getting rid of him 
without a battle ; so she took the brush from its 
hiding-place on the mantel, and Winnie stamped 
off triumphant. 

He came to supper with a very red face. 

“What is the matter?” asked Gypsy. 

“ Oh, nothin’, only I ’ve been shaving,” said 
Winnie, rubbing his cheeks. “ I did n’t s’pose 
it was going to hurt.” 

“Hurt? How? What did you shave 
with? ” 

180 


“With a brush, of course; you do ask such 
stupid questions, Gypsy Breynton ! ” 

“ Anything besides the brush?” 

“ Oh, nothing but a case-knife ; it was an all- 
notched-up case-knife, too ; Patty would n’t give 
me a nice one, — the old thing ! ” 

When Winnie had been in bed about fifteen 
minutes that night, there suddenly uprose an 
utterly indescribable shriek, as of one who had 
been controlling his emotions to the verge of 
human endurance. 

Gypsy rushed up stairs. 

“ Why, Winnie Breynton ! what has hap- 
pened ? ” 

“ They hur-r-rt ! ” sobbed Winnie, who was 
holding on to his cheeks with both hands. 
“ They hurt dreadful, and I was n’t goin’ to — 
tell, ’cause father and Tom — never — do ! ” 

“ Winnie, what did you shave with, I should 
like to know? ” 

“ Water.” 

“ Nothing else?” 

No, there was nothing else. What did he 


put the water in? An old peach-can that he 
found on the shelf. 

“ On the shelf in the pantry? — the lower 
shelf? ” 

“ Yes. I don’t see what there is to laugh at, 
either.” 

Gypsy did her best, but she could not 
help it. 

“ Oh, Winnie Breynton ! I ’d been using it 
to make mother’s mustard-paste ! ” 


182 



long time to get out of bed, a long time to 
get downstairs, a long time to get out of 
doors. “ It was an obstinate case,” repeated 
the doctor, peering mysteriously at her through 
his glasses, “ and she had very little vitality in 
rallying from it, very little vitality.” Gypsy 
said, “ Yes, sir,” with a remarkably vague idea 
what he was talking about, and Winnie wanted 
to know if vitality meant whiskers. 

In fact, it ended in Mrs. Breynton’s becoming 
a confirmed invalid for the winter, very easily 


<83 


excited, and much injured by excitement; very 
dependent on rest and quiet, and having things 
cheerful about her. Thus the family fell into 
the way of telling her the brightest side of 
everything, and bearing their little anxieties 
without her, and thus it came about that 
she never knew of something which Gypsy 
did when the college term was about two 
thirds through. 

She had been down to the office one day to 
carry a letter to Tom from Winnie. Winnie 
was under the ignominious necessity of getting 
some one else to write his letters, but he made 
up for it by originality of material. This par- 
ticular letter ran as follows : — 

“Tell him I want him to bring me some 
peanuts and candy, sir, and if he can’t afford it, 
he need n’t, and I want him to bring me two 
pounds of peanuts and candy. My whiskers 
don’t grow very fast. Why don’t they? I 
shaved them one time with the mustard-box. 
I squealed that night, too. I smash my potatoes 
myself, to dinner. I like to do it with the napkin- 


184 


ring, but Gypsy she won’t let me. I know how 
to tie my shoe-strings in a hard knot, too. 
Mother’s an infidel, and stays in her room 
pretty much. Nothing else that I can think 
of. This is from Winnie Breynton, Esq., sir.” 

Gypsy found in the box 
a letter for herself. It was 
from Tom. She was a little 
surprised, for she had heard 
from him only two days 
before. She read it on the 
way home, folded it with a 
grieved and puzzled face, 
put it in her pocket, and 
said nothing about it to 
any one. It was no wonder 
that she was grieved and 
puzzled. 

My Jewel of a Gypsy, — I made a rush 
in Greek yesterday, and the Sophs are behav- 
ing better than they did. Hall came very near 
getting into trouble with Tutor D., but begged 

185 



off. I hope mother is better, and that you have 
gone back to school. Did I ever tell you how 
much everybody admires your mark in my 
Bible? I keep it on the table so they can 
see it. 

Look here, Gyp. I ’ve got into a little fix. 
My funds were low, — very low, — decidedly 
minus, in fact, though I am sure I cannot tell 
where it is all gone to, and I borrowed a few 
dollars of one of the fellows, and expected to 
pay it back before now; but father says that 
what I had, ought to have lasted till the end of 
the term, and he was so vexed (though I did n’t 
tell him what I wanted it for), and hammers at 
me so for being extravagant, that I can’t apply 
to him. I know I ’ve spent too much, and I 
suppose he gives me all he can afford. I don’t 
want to talk against him, for I suppose this way 
he has is mostly because he thinks so much of 
us, and I know I ’ve made him trouble enough ; 
but I don’t dare to have him know about this. 
The fellow wants the money, and has a right to 
it. It will be a disgrace to me if I don’t pay 


186 


before long; he won’t hold his tongue, for he is 
mad about it. Can you think of any way I can 
get out of it? Could you get something from 
mother? I would not write to her, for I did 
not know but she was too sick. It goes tough 
to have her know, anyway. Don’t tell her, if it 
will do her any hurt. Did n’t mean ever to have 
to come to you about such a scrape again, and 
I have n’t paid back your four dollars yet, either. 
But, to tell the truth, it is a serious fix. I 
wonder you are not tired to death of being 
bothered by 

Your graceless brother, 

Tom. 

Gypsy did not know what to do. She lay 
awake a long time that night, thinking about 
it, her merry brows knotted and her red lips 
drawn into a sorrowful curve. And what she 
thought was this : — 

Tom must have the money. It was too bad, 
— terribly too bad, that he should keep making 
such good resolves and then forgetting them. 

187 


He ought not to have borrowed ; he ought 
not to have needed to borrow; but he must 
have the money. If he should not have it, she 
did not know exactly what would happen, but 
he certainly intimated that it would be some- 
thing very bad. At least he would be disgraced, 
and whatever that might mean, it would be 
dreadful to have Tom disgraced. She con- 
cluded that they would probably send him to 
prison. In all the story-books, people went to 
prison for debt. And to think of Tom in 
prison ! No, he must have the money at any 
cost. 

This was very easy to say ; the thing was, to 
get it. She had none of her own; she had 
lent it all to him before. Of course she could 
not go to her father. Telling her mother was 
not to be thought of ; the excitement and pain 
would throw her back a fortnight. Peace May- 
thorne could be no help. What was to be 
done? She tossed about on the bed till eleven 
o’clock, and was no nearer answering the ques- 
tion than she was at nine. So she went to 


sleep on it. About midnight she woke up sud- 
denly, and thought of something. She jumped 
up in the dark and ran to her upper bureau 
drawer, and pulled it out with a jerk. She 
took out a little 
box, and sat down 
on the floor by the 
window, in the pale 
starlight, and opened 
it. It was a pretty 
box, of cedar-wood, 
inlaid with pearl lilies, 
and was lined with 
soft pink cotton. It 
held all Gypsy’s jew- 
elry. “ All ” was very 
little to be sure, but 
some of it was quite 
pretty. There was a cameo pin, — her best 
one, — with a Beatrice’s head on it ; there was 
a tiny gold cross that she sometimes wore 
around her neck; a coral bracelet fastened by 
a gold snake, made out of the sleeve-clasps 

189 



which she had worn when she was a baby; a 
battered gold heart intended to slip on one of 
the old-fashioned watch-guards; two gold but- 
tons that one of her aunts had given her several 
years ago ; a lava stud, and a number of rings. 
These rings ran very much to cornelian and 
gutta-percha, but there were two handsome 
ones. One had been her mother’s when she 
was a girl, and was sealed by the least bit of 
an opal on a gold leaf; this Gypsy wore only 
on state occasions. The other, her Uncle George 
had given her; it was a circle of elaborate 
chasing, and had been originally a very pretty 
ring. But she had lost it once in the garden, 
and when it was found, months after, it was 
tarnished and bent, and had lain on the pink 
cotton in that condition ever since. When 
Gypsy had looked all the things over, she took 
out this ring, the battered heart, the two gold 
buttons, and the lava stud, and turned them 
about in her fingers, hesitating. 

“ I never wear these,” she said, half aloud, 
“ and nobody will ever suspect or wonder, or 


ask where they ’re gone to ; Joy might, if she 
were here, but she is n’t. And I am sure they 
must be worth as much as ten dollars, and — 
yes, I’ll do it.” 

After that she put away the pearl-inlaid box 
and went to bed, and thought how much she 
was like the girls in the story-books. 

It chanced that Mr. Breynton was in Bur- 
lington for a day or two on business, and 
Gypsy hesitated a little about what she said 
to her mother the next day, but remem- 
bered that Tom was in a hurry, and finally 
said it. 

“ Mother, I have been thinking I should like 
to go over to Vergennes this noon, and match 
the worsteds for your camp-chair.” 

“ To-day, Gypsy?” 

“Yes’m; it is such a perfect day for it, and 
Mr. Surly says it is going to snow to-morrow. 
The only thing is, leaving you without father 
here. I don’t exactly want to.” 

“ Oh, I don’t care. It will only be a few 
hours, and I don’t need anything but what 


Patty can do for me. If you want to go, you 
had better.” 

Now, if there had been nothing but the 
worsteds or her own pleasure concerned, Gypsy 
would not have thought of going till her father 
was at home. But something more important 
than worsteds or pleasure was concerned, and 
she accepted the permission with a readiness 
that was very unlike Gypsy ; for she had been 
very generous and thoughtful; quick to deny 
herself anything and everything, since her 
mother’s illness. Mrs. Breynton, though she 
really did not need her, noticed the difference, 
and Gypsy felt that she did, and being unable 
to explain it, was the hardest thing about this 
Vergennes undertaking. 

She started in the noon train, with a very 
stout-looking purse in her pocket, and one hand 
holding it tight. It held her money, — change 
for her fare and bills for her worsteds, — and it 
also held a battered heart, a ring, two buttons, 
and a lava stud. 

It was a bright, bleak, winter day ; the sun 


192 


on the snow dazzled her, and the wind blew 
sharply into her face as she stepped from the 
cars and began to wander about the streets of 
Vergennes. She did not know exactly where 
to go with her jewelry, and now that it had 
come to the point, she dreaded selling it. It 
was an unpleasant thing to do. It had a mean 
look, she thought ; she was not poorly dressed, 
and they would never guess that she could 
really need the money, and certainly never guess 
what it was for. Besides, she felt uneasy about 
doing such a thing without her mother’s knowl- 
edge. She wished for the twentieth time that 
Tom had not run in debt. However, it was 
rather late in the day to begin to be discour- 
aged ; so, after she had bought her worsteds, 
remembering that the girls in the story-books 
always took their jewelry to a pawnbroker’s, 
she stopped the first man she met, and asked 
him if he could tell her where there was a 
pawnbroker’s shop. The man put his hands 
in his pockets, and his hat on one side of his 
head, and stared, — at her face, the feather in 


13 


193 


her hat, her pretty cashmere dress, her ladylike 
muff, her neatly gloved hands, and said : — 

“ Dew tell, now ! ” 

“ Can you tell me where there is a pawn- 
broker’s, sir? ” repeated Gypsy, reddening. “I 
want to sell some jewelry.” 

“Wall, I never! ” said the man; “ you don’t 
want nary pawnbroker. Jewellers is the place 
fur sech pooty little gals. You ’ll find one right 
round the corner ; very genteel jeweller, and 
fust cousin of mine, too.” 

Gypsy thanked him, and walked away as fast 
as she could. The “ fust cousin ” proved to be 
a little man with a black moustache. Whether 
his claims to gentility lay in that, or in his blue 
satin vest and flaring purple scarf-pin, or in his 
dingy, dusty shop, or in his stock of flashy 
jewelry, — largely consisting of brass and 
paste, — was not quite clear to the inquiring 
mind. Gypsy looked about her, and was sorry 
that she had come. 

“What will you have to-day, ma’am?” asked 
the jeweller, promptly ; “ ear-rings, bracelets, — 


194 






finest Etruscan gold, them bracelets, — fine 
assortment of diamonds, stone cameos, and this 
ruby, ma’am, — the genooine article, worth fifty 
dollars if it ’s worth a copper, but seeing it ’s you, 
now, I ’ll let you have it for a song, — I ’ll say 
ten dollars, and that ’ll be throwin’ of it away.” 

“ Oh, I would n’t have you throw it away on 
me, I ’m sure,” said Gypsy, with mischief in 
her eyes. “ I don’t exactly see how you could 
afford to lose forty dollars on it either. Be- 
sides, I did n’t come to buy anything. I came 
to sell some jewelry.” 

“ Oh, you did, did you ? ” said the jeweller, 
with a sudden change of tone; “well, I don’t 
do much in that line. I sometimes take folks’ 
old silver and such to oblige ’em, but it is n’t 
worth nothing to me.” 

Gypsy had opened her purse, and the trinkets 
fell out upon the glass show-case. She spread 
them out, and asked how much he was willing 
to give her. The jeweller looked them over 
with ill-concealed eagerness, and took them up 
with masterly indifference. 


197 


“ Hum ! — look as if they ’d been through the 
wars; if I was to give you seventy-five cents 
for ’em, it would be more than they ’re worth.” 

“ Seventy-five cents ! ” exclaimed Gypsy ; 
“ why, I would n’t sell one of the buttons for 
that,” and she began to put them back in her 
purse. 

“ Well, say a dollar, then ; come now, that ’s 
fair.” 

“ No, sir, I don’t think it is fair at all,” said 
Gypsy, shutting up her purse very fast. 

“ Dollar and a quarter, then, — call it a bar- 
gain.” But Gypsy walked right out of the 
shop. 

She strolled about awhile, feeling discouraged 
enough, but, Gypsy-like, more provoked that 
anybody should try to cheat her, till at last she 
stumbled upon another jeweller’s, — a handsome 
store, large and clean and well-lighted, with a 
display of watches and silver in the windows. 
So she pulled out her purse again and went in. 

There was a well-dressed man behind the 
counter, who had a very singular smile. Gypsy 


198 


noticed it before she had shut the door, and was 
so absorbed in looking at it that she forgot 
what she had come for, and never said a 
word. 

“ How can I serve you ? ” said the man, 
politely. 

“ Oh, how do you do ? ” said Gypsy, red- 
dening. 

“ I ’m very well, I thank you,” said the jew- 
eller, his singular smile becoming so very sin- 
gular that Gypsy was more confused than ever. 
She felt as if he were making fun of her, and she 
knew that she had said a stupid thing; so, by 
way of making up for it, with her face on fire, 
she broke out : — 

“ I want to sell a heart and some buttons for 
my brother ; that is — I mean — well, do you pay 
people for old jewelry? That ’s what I mean.” 

Well, it depended on the quality; sometimes 
he did and sometimes he did n’t ; he would look 
at anything she might have and tell her. So 
out came the heart and the buttons, the ring 
and the lava stud, a second time. The jeweller 


199 


took them up one by one, examined them care- 
fully, laid them down, and said, looking as if 
he were relieving himself of some excellent 
joke, that he would give her two dollars and a 
half for the whole. 

“ Why, I expected to get ten, just as much as 
could be ! ” said Gypsy. 

“ Two dollars and a half is all they ’re worth, 

Miss,” repeated the jeweller, and his remarkable 

smile broadened and grew to such an extent 

that Gypsy’s indignation got the better of her 
* 

politeness. 

“ I should like to know what you ’re laughing 
at, if you please ! I don’t see anything so very 
funny ! ” 

“ Oh, nothing, nothing. I beg your pardon ; 
only to think that you expected ten dollars ! 
but nothing is the matter at all.” 

“ Then you won’t give me any more than two 
dollars and a half! ” said Gypsy, faintly, her 
ripe red lips quivering with disappointment. 
“ Two dollars and a half would never pay 
the debt. Poor Tom, poor Tom ! ” 


just then a customer opened the door; a step 
strangely familiar sounded on the floor behind 
her ; a heavy hand was laid upon her shoulder. 
Gypsy started, turned, and screamed. 

It was her father. 


201 



'T^HE hot crimson blood rushed all over her 
face, down her neck, out to the tips of her 
fingers. If he had caught her stealing, she could 
not have looked more guilty. In a minute she 
remembered herself, and tried to laugh as if 
nothing unusual were going on. 

“Why, father! Where on earth did you 
drop down from?” 

“ I am just on my way home from Burling- 
ton, and had a little business here. I did not 
expect to find you. What brought you over? 
and what are you buying there?” 


202 


“ I came over to get mother some worsteds ; 
that is — yes, I ’ve been buying her some 
worsteds for her camp-chair.” 

“ But these are not worsteds.” 

Gypsy looked the other way and stood still, 
and the jeweller seemed to think that it was 
very funny. 

“What were you doing, Gypsy? buying 
some jewelry? Does your mother know about 
it?” 

Gypsy picked up the trinkets and never said 
a word. What should she say? Her father 
began to look displeased. 

“Gypsy,” said he, gravely, “what does all 
this mean?” 

Gypsy, bewildered, frightened, hardly know- 
ing what she said, broke out : — 

“ No, sir, I was n’t buying, I was selling, — 
just some little things that belong to me, and 
mother always lets me do what I want with my 
things, and the man would n’t give me but two 
dollars and a half, and that won’t half pay 
it, and — I mean, I don’t want Tom to go 


203 


to prison, and — oh, dear, let ’s go home 
now.’' 

“ Put those things back into your purse,” 
said her father, sternly. Gypsy obeyed in 
silence, and in silence they went out of the 
store and left the jeweller smiling still. 

Mr. Breynton took the road to the depot, 
walking in great strides that Gypsy could 
scarcely keep up with. For a few moments he 
said nothing to her, and his silence frightened 
her more than anything he could have said. 

“ Gypsy ! ” he began at last — and Gypsy 
trembled all over — “ Gypsy, I don’t understand 
this thing, and I want you to explain it, the 
whole of it.” 

Gypsy knew that she must obey, and it 
seemed to her as if her breath stopped coming. 
What would Tom say? Oh, what would he? 
She spoke her thought for answer, and it was 
the best answer that she could have made : — 

“ Oh, father, I don’t know what Tom will 
say to me ! He would n’t have had you know 
for the world, not for the world, and mother 



204 


was too sick to tell, and so I had to do it all 
alone, and — ” 

“Do what all alone?” interrupted her father, 
severely; “what is this about Tom? What 
has he done?” 

“ He borrowed a little money, — I don’t be- 
lieve it was very much, but he borrowed it,” 
said Gypsy, faintly, “ and he could n’t pay, and 
I was afraid he would have to go to prison, and 
so I thought I ’d sell my heart and things, — it 
was a real old heart, and jammed up where 
Winnie bit it and I stamped on it when we were 
little, you know,” she added, her eyes twinkling 
in spite of her fright and grief. 

“ So Tom has run in debt, and been to you 
to pay it ! ” 

Mr. Breynton’s eyes flashed, and there was a 
terrible sound in his voice. Gypsy did not 
dare to say a word. 

“ I should like to know how long this has 
been going on ! ” 

“ Oh, not long, sir, not very long, and Tom 
was so sorry, and I know he did n’t mean to, 


205 


and I never cared a bit for the heart, you know, 
and the ring was all black lying out in that 
funny little chink under the fence.” 

There was a silence. Mr. Breynton strode 
rapidly on, and Gypsy had to run to keep up 
with him. 

“ I should like to know,” he said suddenly, 
“what you meant by saying that Tom would n’t 
have me know for the world, but would have 
told his mother if she had been fit to hear such 
a disgraceful story.” 

“Why, you know, Tom thinks you — you 
don’t take things just like mother,” said honest 
Gypsy, afraid that she was going to be disre- 
spectful, but not knowing any other way than 
to tell the truth. “ Sometimes you are very 
much displeased, you know, and you talk to 
him a good deal and he gets angry, — and of 
course that’s very wrong in him; but then he 
seems to get along better with mother; and 
he said he knew he had no business to have 
borrowed, but he did n’t dare to have you 
know, and you see, sir, I was n’t to say a 


206 


word about it, and I don’t know what he 
will do.” 

Mr. Breynton made no answer, but strode on 
faster than ever, his face flushing and paling 
and working strangely. Gypsy wondered what 
he was thinking; whatever it was, she never 
knew, nor any one else, perhaps. 

“ I do hope you won’t scold him very hard,” 
she ventured at last, in a very faint voice. 
“ He did n’t mean to, oh, I know he did n’t 
mean to.” 

“ Do you think you have been doing right 
to start off in this way without the knowledge 
of either your mother or father, selling jewelry 
in the stores to help him when he does n’t de- 
serve to be helped? That money was really 
stolen from me, as much as it will be stolen 
from his class-mate if it is not paid. He knew 
I had n’t it for him to spend,” said Mr. Breyn- 
ton, taking no notice of what she said. 

“ I ’m sure I don’t know,” said poor Gypsy. 
“ I was so troubled and bothered, and I wanted 
to tell mother. I tried to do right, any way ” 


207 


She raised her great brown eyes just then, 
and nobody looking into them could doubt 
it. Her father did not, and he spoke more 
gently. 

“ Well, well, my child, I hope so. Tom 
makes us all a great deal of trouble. I don’t 
understand it. I’m sure I have taken care 
enough of that boy.” 

Gypsy might have said a thing or two to that, 
if she had not been his daughter ; but she did 
something that was much better. She began to 
plead again — and Gypsy made a very pretty 
pleader — for Tom. 

“ You know, father, he will never do it again 
as long as he lives, never, and he is so dread- 
fully sorry and ashamed and all, and if he gets 
angry, and goes and acts worse after it, why, I 
should cry so, father ! ” 

Her father drew her hand up into his, his 
nervous face pale and puzzled and grave. 

“ He has done wrong, Gypsy, and I must tell 
him so. But I will be gentle with him, and I 
will pay the debt this time, though I never shall 


208 


again. Now, my child, I hope you will conceal 
nothing of this sort from me after this.” 

“ I did n’t suppose you would be so nice,” 
said Gypsy, drawing a very long breath ; “ if 
I had supposed you ’d be so nice, I should 
have wanted to tell and have it over, right 
straight off.” 

Towards the end of the term, Tom came out 
with a new idea. He wanted to go into the 
army. His letters home were filled with it, 
and the more his father opposed it, the more 
Tom insisted. The boy was too young, said 
Mr. Breynton, and said rightly; it would be 
the ruin of him, body and soul ; the Govern- 
ment neither required nor needed such sacrifices 
yet; if the war lasted till he was twenty, he 
might go; not a month before. 

But so many of the fellows were going, rea- 
soned Tom ; everybody was talking about it, 
since that last defeat at the West; two of his 
own class-mates had left within a fortnight ; he 
felt so mean to stay at home. Sometimes his 
letters would come embellished with flags and 


14 


209 


shields and various national devices of lfis own 
painting; sometimes he copied for Gypsy cer- 
tain stirring patriotic songs which were popular 
in college, and privately instructed her to sing 
them to her father every night when he came 
home from the store. Once in a while he 
undertook a very particular appeal to his mother, 
but received for answer only a gentle, “ I am 
sorry, my son, but I agree with your father 
perfectly about this thing. We do not think it 
best for you to go till you are older and stronger. 
Then if you are needed, we would not keep you 
back a moment. Try to be a good boy, mean- 
time, and wait patiently.” 

Finally Tom had to content himself with sly 
hints and innuendoes, and with the most remark- 
able patriotic orations, covering sixteen pages 
of note-paper, in which the Star-Spangled 
Banner and the American Eagle figured largely. 
These sublime abstractions were evidently in- 
tended as a severe and dignified way of stinging 
the family conscience. In a confidential note 
to Gypsy, he said once what he had not said 


210 


to any one else. “ You see, Gypsy, I ’m sick of 
college through and through. I have n’t taken 
the stand, nor behaved the way I meant to, and 
I wish I were out of it once for all.” 

So the winter passed, and the spring vacation 
came, and Tom with it. The army question 
had rather subsided, and they thought he had 
forgotten it. But once or twice, when the sub- 
ject was mentioned, Gypsy, looking up sud- 
denly, caught an expression in his eye which 
made her doubt and think. 

Somebody made up a party one bright day to 
visit Belden’s Falls, and Tom and Gypsy were of 
it. The Rowes were there, and the Guests, the 
Holmans, Miss Cardrew, and Mr. Guernsey, — 
nearly all the teachers and scholars of the High 
School, and many of Tom’s old friends. The 
day was charming, and the company was charm- 
ing, and the Falls were so interesting, Delia 
said. The ride was a long one, and led through 
sunny valleys where the early birds were sing- 
ing, up rocky hills where the carriages jolted 
and the girls screamed, through patches of 


21 1 


forest cooled by the snow that still lay in the 
hollows and under the shadow of the walls. 

They drove into the woods that surrounded 
the Falls, tied their horses, and voted to walk 
the rest of the way through the cool, damp 
shadow and the perfume of the pines. Not 
that they thought very much about perfume or 
shadow. Tom and Francis were telling college 
stories, and after the fashion of a party of very 
young people, they were fast getting into a 
“ gale,” when they turned a sudden corner and 
stopped. 

A flash of light, a roar, a dizziness, — and 
there it all was. A sheer fall of foam broken 
and tossed about by huge black, jagged rocks ; 
the stealthy under-current showing through in 
green, swift lines; showers of spray falling in 
feathers, breaking in bubbles, flashing into 
silver, touched into gold ; and, spanning the 
roar and brightness and bewilderment, a tiny 
rainbow, quivering, like a thing imprisoned. 
Above, the terrible rushing on of the black cur- 
rent to its fall, through gorges and caverns, 


312 



through sunlight and shade, — a thing untamed 
and untamable. Beyond, the tree-tops tossing, 
and a sky with silver clouds. 

“ Oh, I never ! Is n’t it sweet pretty ? He 
he, ha ! ” said Delia Guest 


213 


“Elegant! splendid! beait\\i\x\ ! Why, how 
handsome it is ! ” from Sarah. 

Gypsy had thrown off her hat, — she was 
sure she could not have told why, — and stood 
with it hanging by one string from her dropped 
hands, her face upturned, her eyes as still as 
a statue’s. 

“ Look at Gypsy Breynton ! ” said somebody, 
presently. “Why don’t you talk, for pity’s 
sake ? ” 

“ Oh ! ” said Gypsy, with a jump ; “ yes, — I 
forgot. What was it you wanted? ” 

They looked to their hearts’ content, and 
looked again, and went away and came back 
and looked again ; they crawled round into the 
cave, and threw stones into the boiling vortex, 
and tried to measure the sides of the gorge with 
a fish-line, and crouched where they could feel 
the spray on their faces, and explored the 
wooded banks, and crossed the tiny foot-bridge 
that hung, old and trembling, over a chasm 
where the black water lay two or three hundred 
feet down. 


214 


“ I feel so sorry for it,” said Gypsy, as she 
stood looking down, leaning rather recklessly 
on the frail railing. 

“ Sorry for it ! ” called Sarah, from a safe 
place on the bank, — she said that the bridge 
made her nervous. 

“ Why, it looks so like a great creature leap- 
ing along to be killed,” said Gypsy, under her 
breath. Sarah stared, and wanted to know if 
she read that in a fairy story. 

“ Oh, look at Tom Breynton ! ” called one of 
the Holmans, suddenly. He had crawled to the 
very edge of the chasm, past some trees and a 
bush or two, and was sitting on a sharp, pro- 
jecting rock, both feet hanging down, and his 
hands in his pockets. Of course everybody 
exclaimed, and the girls screamed, which was, 
probably, exactly what Tom wanted. 

“Torn, I don’t like to look at you very 
much,” said Gypsy, quietly ; she had not any 
of that way which so many sisters have, of wor- 
rying Tom if she thought that he was doing a 
dangerous thing. She knew that he was old 


215 


enough and sensible enough to take care of 
himself; and, further, that boys don’t like to be 
interfered with by their younger sisters “ before 
folks ; ” and, also, that boys will do things that 
girls cannot do, and dangerous things, and be 
hurt or not, as the chance may be, and that 
there is no more use in trying to stop them than 
there would be in putting down a little pine 
branch into that great writhing current, to dam 
it up. So she said what she had to say, and 
then let him alone. 

“ Look the other way, then,” said Tom, 
coolly, leaning far over, with both hands in his 
pockets ; it did have an ugly look, — as if a 
breath would blow him off. 

Gypsy made him no answer, but she pressed 
forward instinctively to watch him, leaned 
heavily upon the railing, and it cracked with a 
loud, sharp noise. 

Tom heard it and sprang. Gypsy was on the 
shore at a bound, safe enough, and the bridge, 
too. Tom, with his hands encumbered, slipped 
and fell. 


216 


There was a cry, — the vacant rock, — and 
horrible silence. 

Into it a groan broke, and Gypsy, leaning 
over with rigid face where all the rest had 
fallen back to make room for her, saw that the 
rock shelved and jutted eight feet down, into a 
narrow ledge. Tom, swinging by the bush 
with one free hand, had fallen here and lay 
helpless, one ankle sprained by a cruel twist in 
a crevice. 

Mr. Guernsey was gone already for a rope, and 
they drew him up and drove him slowly home, 
and — well, I am inclined to think that Tom 
said his prayers that night. 

The sprain proved to be a severe one; the 
doctor ordered him to the sofa, and to the sofa 
he had to go. The result was that he lost 
several weeks of the beginning of the term. 

This was time and soil for Gypsy’s sowing, 
and she made the most of it. 

It was vacation, so that she had most of her 
time to herself, and she delivered it over entire 
to Tom. Perched on a high, round stool with- 


out a back, with her feet on the rounds and her 
head on one side like a canary, she sat by his 
sofa hour after hour, and read to him, and sang 
to him, and talked to him, and played chess 
with him. She ran on errands for him, she 
made him lemonade and whips and jellies, she 
saved up every scrap of news that she could 
gather for him, she ran all over town to borrow 
novels for him, — she became, in fact, for 
patience, and gentleness, and persistent care, 
such a model of a little sister as astonished Tom 
beyond measure. Not that she never made 
any blunders. She would scarcely have been 
Gypsy if she had not tipped over his lemonade, 
shut up flies into his books, joggled cold water 
down his neck, and lost the pins out of his 
bandages. Nor was it by any means as easy 
to be a model little sister as might be supposed. 
In spite of her love for Tom, play was play, 
and to sit up on a round stool and read Cooper’s 
novels aloud, when the sun was shining, and 
Sarah Rowe was paddling about in the orchard 
swamp alone, was hard enough sometimes. 


218 





Moreover, a sick boy is very much like a caged 
panther, and Tom, to tell the truth, was once 
in a while — a little — cross. He voted it a 
bore, this lying on sofas, at least twenty times 
a day, and in by no means the most cheerful 
of tones ; he was sure that his bandage was too 
tight one minute, and confident that it was too 
loose the next; he pronounced the lemonade 
too sour, and the whips not as good as they 
were yesterday; he wished that Gypsy would 
not read so fast. No, that was too slow, now; 
it sounded like Dr. Prouty preaching a two 
hours’ Fast-Day sermon. Now, why need she 
keep coughing and wriggling about? and what 
was the use of making up such unearthly faces 
over the long words? 

“ Then, you see, I get mad sometimes,” 
Gypsy told Peace, “ and I fire up and say 
something horrid, and then I ’m just as sorry, 
and I go right at him and squeeze him and kiss 
him, and he says he did n’t mean to, and that 
I ’m too good to a fellow, and I say I did n’t 
mean to, and I squeeze him again, and we ’re 


22 


both of us sorry, and after that I go down town 
and get him a pint of peanuts, and you ought 
to see us eat them ! ” 

So the weeks passed, and what Tom thought 
of Gypsy at the end of them, he managed 
partly to tell her one Sunday night when they 
were alone together. 

“ I say, Gyp.” 

“Well?” 

“ Look here.” 

“ I ’m looking as hard as I can ; it ’s pitch 
total ! I can’t see a thing but two boots (they 
want blacking ^dreadfully ) — not in the place 
where boots ought to be — all skewed up on 
top of the parlour sofa.” 

“ Gypsy, I was undertaking to talk sense.” 

“You were? Well, I never! Do let me call 
in father and mother, — they would be so taken 
by surprise.” 

“Yes, ma’am, I was. I was going to say that 
you have been a good girl since I ’ve been shut 
up here.” 

“ Oh ! ” said Gypsy, with a change of tone. 


222 


“A good girl,” repeated Tom, “and what 
with your jellies and novels and bandages, 
you ’ve treated me better than I deserve. I 
vote you a first rate fellow. Give us a kiss, will 
you?” 

Gypsy gave him the kiss, and thought 
about it. 

“ What would you give to see me in a blue 
uniform, with a musket on my shoulder, or a 
sword, perhaps, and a red sash, taking a rebel 
fort and getting into the newspapers, and doing 
up glory, and Hail Columbia, and all the rest 
of it, — be a little proud of your good-for- 
nothing brother, maybe?” 

“ Yes,” said Gypsy, with flashing eyes, “ of 
course I should. But you ’re not a good-for- 
nothing, and soldiers are so apt to get killed, 
you know. Besides, mother won’t let you, and 
I had rather be proud of you at college, a great 
deal. I expect you will do splendidly this term, 
don’t you?” she added confidentially. 

“ Hum,” said Tom, in a queer tone, and 


223 


broke out whistling. Gypsy could not see his 
face in the dark. 

“You know Yankee Doodle isn't — exactly 
— Sunday, Tom dear,” she ventured at last. 
“ No, nor John Brown’s Body, nor Dixie, 
either, Tom Breynton ! Old Hundred? Yes, 
that will do. I wonder if it would be wicked 
for me to whistle alto ? ” 

Whenever Gypsy proposed to whistle, Tom’s 
musical tendencies came to an untimely end, 
and this occasion proved no exception. 


Hr" 0 

:A - STAMP: 



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*11111 

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:Tne -wrong: 



:CORMCR: 


( ’CMAPTPR-XI- 

.) Mm\ 


DAY or two before Tom went back to 
college, the children were all sitting 
together one morning in Mrs. Breynton’s room, 
when their father came in from the post office 
with an open letter in his hand. 

“ Oh, I guess that ’s a letter from my coal- 
man,” remarked Winnie, with the nonchalance 
of a business man of untold epistolary experi- 
ence. “ I ordered two tons and a pint tipped 
into my cellar, only Mrs. Winnie she said it 
was n’t enough to keep the children warm, and 
then I tell you we got mad, and I just told her 
she was n’t anything but a woman, and she kept 
still after that y sir ! ” 


“From Uncle George ?” asked Gypsy, look- 
ing up from her work. “ Oh, what did Joy 
do about those satin slippers, and what did he 
give her on her birthday?” — but then she 
stopped. She had seen, and every one else had 
seen by this time, the dark sternness of her 
father’s face. 

“Thomas, I should like to have you read 
that.” 

Tom took the letter, read it, dropped it, grew 
very pale. 

It fell on the floor by Gypsy’s chair. She 
saw that it was a printed circular, so she picked 
it up and read : — 

David Breynton, Esq., Sir, — The bill 
of Mr. Thomas Breynton for the last collegiate 
term has not been paid. This notice is given 
in obedience to a law of the college, which 
provides that, “ If any student shall fail to pay, 
within two weeks after the close of any vaca- 
tion, his bills of the preceding term, it shall be 
the duty of the treasurer to give immediate 


226 


notice thereof to the bondsman of such stu- 
dent, unless the latter shall have deposited with 
the treasurer a certificate from his bondsman 
or guardian that the means of payment have 
not been furnished him, or shall have presented 
to the treasurer a satisfactory reason for the 
delay.” 

Your obedient servant, 

Tr. 

“Well,” said Mr. Breynton, “what have 
you to say for yourself? ” 

Tom had not a word to say for himself. He 
sat with his eyes upon the ground, his face still 
very pale. 

“ I should like to know why your tuition was 
not paid,” insisted his father. Tom tried to 
whistle, failed miserably, put his hands in his 
pockets, and walked over to the window. 

“ Meant to pay it this term,” he said sulkily. 
“ My money got played out some way or other, 
I ’m sure I have n’t the fraction of an idea how, 
and I meant to start fresh when I went back, 


and pay it. I don’t know how I was to know 
that the old fellow must come and tell you.” 

“ So first you were guilty of a meanness both 
to your instructors and to me, and then you 
resorted to a deception to hide it.” 

“ There was n’t any deception about it ! ” 
broke out Tom, angrily. “ I meant to pay it 
up honest, I say, and I did n’t tell you, because 
it was of no use to anybody that I see, and 
then I knew you would make such a — ” 

“Tom!” interrupted his mother’s sorrowful 
voice, and Tom stopped. When he had stopped, 
he saw Gypsy’s eyes, and his face flushed. 

“ You may come into the library, Thomas, 
and we will talk this over,” said his father, ex- 
citedly. They went out and shut the door. 

Winnie, who in the excitement had put his 
coal-basket on his head and forgotten to take it 
off, looked after them with his mouth open, and 
Gypsy and her mother looked at each other and 
never said a word. 

Tom was shut up with his father until dinner- 
time, and a violent headache, brought on by the 


228 


excitement of the morning, kept Mrs. Breyn- 
ton in her room all day. Gypsy wandered 
mournfully about the house, shut herself up- 
stairs and tried to cry a little, tried to play 
with Winnie, tried to make Tom talk, and, fail- 
ing in all, went at last to Peace Maythorne. 
There, in the quiet room, in sight of the quiet 
eyes, the tears came, and comfort too. 

Yet, after all, there were very many boys 
much worse than Tom. He was thoughtless 
rather than vicious, — too much intent on being 
as well-dressed as anybody, on heading sub- 
scriptions, and patronising first-class clubs, 
and “ treating ” generously ; over-desirous to 
be set down as “ a good fellow ; ” more anxious 
to be popular than to be a good scholar, like 
many another open-hearted, open-handed, merry 
boy; moreover, a little afraid to say No. Yet, 
as I said, by no means vicious. Faithful to his 
promise to Gypsy, he had left off all manner of 
sipping and pledging in brandies and wines, — 
had met question, laugh, and sneer, and met 
them like a man ; of his incipient gambling he 


229 


had soon wearied ; his sense of honour was his 
'stronghold, and that was crossed by it sadly. 
As for the smoking, — though I am not includ- 
ing that very disagreeable habit among the 
vices y — angry as he had been about it, he had 
been cornered by his father’s command ; the 
discomfort of doing a thing, as he said, “ upon 
the sly,” was rather more than the cigars were 
worth. 

Extravagance and laziness were what ailed 
him now, — two rather treacherous compagnons 
de voyage for a college boy. Judging from the 
record of these two terms, what would they 
have done for him when the four years were 
over? Gypsy used to wonder sometimes, her 
bright cheeks paling as she asked herself the 
question. 

Perhaps she need not have been as much 
afraid as she was of having Tom with Francis 
Rowe. He did not seem to fancy Francis as 
much as he had done six months ago. From 
certain mysterious hints that he dropped once 
or twice, and from the expression of his face, 


230 



Gypsy inferred that that young gentleman’s 
recent career at the Halls of Learning had been 
such as to disgust even thoughtless Tom. 

One day, when Tom had been back at college 
a little over a week, Gypsy came slowly home 
from Peace Maythorne’s with troubled eyes. 


231 


This sultry spring weather was doing Peace no 
good. She had grown very weak and almost 
sleepless with continued pain. 

“ She looks like a ghost this morning,” said 
Gypsy, coming into her mother’s room, — “so 
thin, and pale, and patient, and sweet, it almost 
made me cry to look at her. I don’t see why 
those old doctors can’t do something for her.” 

“ They do all they can,” said Mrs. Breynton. 
“ These diseases in the spine are very hard to 
manage. But it does seem as if Peace had a 
great deal of suffering, poor child ! ” 

“ It has made an angel of her, anyway,” said 
Gypsy, emphatically. “ I told Tom the other 
day, she made me feel like a little mean cater- 
pillar crawling round in the mud beside her. 
I ’m going to write to him again to-day. He 
always wants to know how Peace is. Hilloa, 
Winnie ! — a letter? ” 

“ From Tom ! ” 

“ Yes, for you.” 

Mrs. Breynton took it, stopping a moment to 
look at the envelope.' 


232 


“ How blurred the post-marks do get ! This 
doesn’t look any more like New Haven than it 
does like Joppa, does it, Gypsy?” 

“ No, and just look at the stamp, skewed 
clear over there in the left-hand corner. How 
funny ! ” 

“ Tom is always very particular about his 
stamp, and all the getting up of his letters. 
He must have been in a great hurry,” said his 
mother, breaking the seal. Evidently he was 
in a hurry, for the letter was undated. She 
read, with Gypsy looking over her shoulder. 

My dearest Mother, — I don’t know 
what you will think of me, and it is rough work 
telling you, but I ’ve done it, — I ’ve enlisted. 

I left New Haven day before yesterday, and 
enlisted as a private here at Washington this 

morning, in the regiment, and expect to 

be sent to the front to-morrow. 

I could n’t stand it any longer. So many of 
the fellows were off, and I was n’t doing any- 
thing at college, and I was ashamed of myself, 


233 


and I knew you were all ashamed of me. I can 
shoulder a musket and obey orders, and per- 
haps — who knows? — take some prisoners, and 
get noticed by the General. At any rate, I can 
die at my post, if there is any necessity, and 
that is better than nothing, and I should n’t 
bother you any more. 

There ! I had no business to say that, mother. 
I don’t expect to be killed, either. I expect to 
have a jolly time, and I think serving your 
country is a great deal better than flunking in 
Homer. 

The only thing about it is, I am afraid you 
will feel so, and Gypsy. I did n’t much like 
doing it after you had said No, but I must do 
it on the sly or not go at all, and I set my heart 
on going, before the end of last term. 

I won’t drink, mother, nor learn to swear, nor 
any of the rest of it. I promise you I will be 
a better fellow than I was in college, and be 
double the use in the world, and you shall be 
proud of me some day. Tell Gypsy so and tell 
her not to cry, and to think the best she can of 


234 

































* 

















































me. She is a jewel, and I don’t like disappoint- 
ing her, nor you either. I do hope it won’t 
make you worse. I don’t know what father 
will say ; could n’t make up my mind to write 
to him. I thought he would n’t mind it quite 
so much if you told him. Please give him my 
love if he will take it, and tell him you will all 
see the day when you will think that I have 
done the best way. Give Winnie a kiss for me, 
and tell him my gun is taller than he is. Will 
write again as soon as I get to camp, and tell 
you how to direct. 

I do want to hear soon, and find out whether 
you can forgive 

Your Son, 

Tom. 

P. S. I am very well, — never better in my 
life, — and should be very happy if I only knew 
what you were going to say about it. I suppose 
you will think I have done wrong; well, any- 
way, it can’t be helped now. 

T. B. 


2 37 


)<h^O : Q UIET: EYES : Q •»/. 


'T'WO girls, with hands clasped and cheeks 
A laid softly together; the one with her 
bloodless lips and pale gold hair and shrunken 
hands; the other round and rosy and brown, 
with her dark eyes snapping, and that canary 
poise to her head, and the morning sunlight 
over both, — it made a very pretty picture. 

But neither of them was thinking anything 
about that, — which was the charm of it. 

“ Peace, you are so white this morning, — do 
turn your face out of that sunbeam; it makes 
you look worse.” 

Peace smiled, and moved her head. 


238 



“ Why, it does n’t do the least good ! The 
sun always goes wherever you do. Peace May- 
thorne, I should like — well, I think I should 
like to pound that doctor with a tack-hammer, 
and then put some cayenne pepper on his hand- 
kerchief, and then pinch him, and then choke 
him a little, — just a little, not enough to be 
impolite, exactly, you know.” 


239 


“ He does all he can for me,” said Peace, 
laughing, “ and he is very kind, I ’m sure.” 

“ If it were n’t for his whiskers,” considered 
Gypsy, “ such solemn-looking things ! They 
look like grave-stones, exactly, — little black 
slate grave-stones, fringed on the edge.” 

“ He ’s good enough to her, I ’m sure,” ob- 
served Aunt Jane, who sat sewing by the 
window, “ and what with the jelly, and tongue, 
and books, and nobody knows what not, your 
ma keeps sendin’ her, I don’t think Peace has 
much to complain of.” 

“ Perhaps you would if you had to lie from 
morning to night with a pain in your back, and 
your father and mother dead, and nobody to ” — 
began Gypsy, with flashing eyes, and stopped. 
Then there was the old story over again, — 
Peace was grieved, and Aunt Jane was angry, 
and Gypsy was sorry. Presently Aunt Jane went 
out on an errand, and Gypsy said so. Peace 
sighed, but made no answer. Only, after a time, 
she said something, half to herself, about “a little 
while,” that Gypsy did not exactly understand. 


240 


“The worse you feel, the more of an angel 
you are,” said Gypsy, in a pause. 

“ Oh, Gypsy ! ” 

“Yes, you are,” nodded Gypsy; “and I’m 
cross and bothered and worried about Tom, 
and, put it all together, I don’t begin to have 
as hard a time as you. When I come here, and 
look right into your eyes, I am so ashamed of 
myself, — why, I ’m so ashamed, Peace ! ” 

Peace raised her quiet eyes, and then she 
turned them away, for they had grown suddenly 
dark and dim. 

“ But I don’t have anything but myself to 
bear, Gypsy. It is a great deal easier to take 
things ourselves than to see them coming on 
somebody we love so very dearly.” 

“ Yes,” said Gypsy, thinking for the moment 
how thankful she would be if she could be the 
soldier in Tom’s place; or how it seemed as if 
she would go to bed and lie there like Peace, 
if she could only make Tom the noble, prin- 
cipled, successful man that he might be, — that 
she was afraid at times he would never be. 


16 


241 


“Ye-es; but then, you see, I have Tom , to 
begin with!' 

And Peace said nothing to that. 

Presently, she wanted to know what they 
heard from him. 

“Well, we had a letter day before yesterday, 
and he said he was pretty well, and was over 
that terrible neuralgia, — he has had it almost 
ever since he has been there. But he thought 
there was going to be another fight, and so, you 
know, I have to go and think about it, and 
mother sits upstairs in the dark, and I know 
she ’s been crying, as well as I want to.” 

Peace did not say, “ Oh, he won’t get hurt. 
He wasn’t last time. The way not to have a 
thing happen is not to expect it. Look on the 
bright side,” &c., &c., &c. That sorry sort 
of sympathy it was not her fashion to give. 
Of course it was as possible for Tom to be 
wounded as any one else, and she could not have 
deluded Gypsy into thinking it was not, if she 
had tried. But she turned and kissed the cheek 
that was touching hers. 


242 






“ It was so dreadful at first,” said Gypsy, 
who, when she once began to talk to Peace 
about Tom, never knew where to stop; “you 
see, father, — I guess I told you, didn’t I? — 
well, he was so angry ! I never saw him look 
so in all my life. He said Tom was a disgrace 
to the family, and he said he would go right on 
and bring him home, — Tom is under age, you 
know, and he could do it, and I was so terribly 
afraid he would, and that would make Tom just 
as wicked as he could be, I know, he ’d be so 
angry. But mother talked him over. Well, 
then he sat right down and wrote a letter to 
Tom, and I never saw what was in it, but I 
guess it was awful. I don’t believe but what 
mother talked him round not to send that, too, 
for I saw her tearing up some letter-paper that 
night, and she was just as pale ! But by-and- 
by father did n’t seem to be angry, but just 
sorry. He was walking back and forth, back 
and forth, in the entry, and he never knew I 
saw him, and he shut up his hands together 
tight, and once I heard him groan right out 


245 


loud, and say ‘ Poor boy, poor boy ! ’ and you ’d 
better believe I thought I was going to cry. 
Then did I tell you about our having prayers?” 
“ No” 

“Didn’t? Well, that was the worst of it. 
You see they had been shut up together almost 
all the afternoon and evening, talking it over, I 
suppose, — he and mother, I mean, — and no- 
body ate any supper but Winnie (he ate six 
slices of bread and two baked apples, and 
wanted to know if Tom got killed if he could n’t 
have his gun), and I couldn’t go to bed, and 
Winnie would n’t, — he acted just as if it was a 
holiday, and said he was going to sit up till nine 
o’clock, because Tom had gone to the wars; — 
so we just sat round and looked at each other, 
and it grew dark, and we could hear them 
talking upstairs, and it was dreadful. Then 
when Winnie saw me feeling for my handker- 
chief, he began to think he must cry too ; so he 
stood up against the wall, and opened his mouth, 
and set up such a shout, — it was enough to 
wake the dead ! and I had enough to do hush- 


246 


ing him up, but it made me laugh, and I 
could n’t help it to save me. Well, then, it 
kept growing darker, and pretty soon they came 
down, and father called in Patty, just as if 
somebody were dead or something, and told her 
that Mr. Tom had enlisted ; then he sent her 
out, and we all sat down, and he said : ‘ Chil- 
dren, Tom has done wrong, and we are sorry; 
but we have decided to let him stay in the army 
if he wishes, and now we will pray God to bless 
it to him, and to bring him home to us if it be 
His will.’ And then we all knelt down, and he 
began to pray, and I tell you, Peace, he loves 
Tom Breynton ! I did wish Tom could have 
heard him, and then, perhaps, he would forget 
about some of the times he has worried him 
so. I guess we were all choking before we 
got up, — except Winnie ; he was sound asleep 
on the floor when we went to pick him 
up. 

“ So after that they wrote to Tom, but I 
don’t know what they said, and we all wrote to 
him, and his next letter sounded dreadfully 


247 


sorry. Now, / believe something, Peace May- 
thorne.” 

“ What is it? ” 

“Well, Tom is just sick of it, only he won’t 
say so.” 

“ Why, what makes you think that? ” 

“ Oh, he keeps praising it up so much, for 
one thing. When Tom likes a thing firstrate, 
he does n’t keep talking about it. Then once in 
a while he lets out a sentence about the rations 
being rather different from mother’s sponge cake 
and mince pies, and he says the marches tire 
him dreadfully. Then there ’s the neuralgia. 
He’s real patriotic, Tom is, and just as brave; 
but mother says he is n’t strong enough for it, 
and father says such young boys always go 
more from love of adventure than anything else, 
and almost always wish they had stayed at home. 
He says they don’t help the Government 
either, getting sick and filling the hospitals, and 
what we want in the army is men. But as long 
as he has gone, I hope he will take a prisoner 
or something. He likes to get funny letters 


from home, and so I drew a picture last week 
of a great, big, lean, lank, long Rebel, with Tom 
coming up about to his knee, and standing up 
on a barrel to arrest him.” 

“You write to him often, I suppose?” asked 
Peace. 

“Oh, yes; Tom likes it. And I tell him all 
the news ; he likes that. And I tell him I love 
him pretty much ; and he likes that. We send 
quantities of letters, and some he gets and some 
he does n't. But we get almost all his. But 
the thing of it is, Peace Maythorne, Francis 
Rowe says everybody in the army drinks and 
swears before they are out of it, and then the 
papers do tell such dreadful things about the 
battles, and I think, and go to bed thinking, 
and wake up thinking.” 

“ Gypsy,” said Peace, in a tone that had a 
new thought in it. 

“ Well?” 

“ You love Tom ever so much.” 

“ Um — a little — yes.” 

“And you are a real good sister to him, I think.” 


249 


“ Don’t know about that,” said Gypsy, wink- 
ing ; “ sometimes I ’m horrid, and sometimes 
I’m not; it’s just as it happens.” 

“ I ’ve been wondering,” said Peace, and 
hesitated. 

“ Wondering what? ” 

Peace raised her still eyes, and Gypsy looked 
into them. 

“ Wondering if you have helped him every 
way you can.” 

“ I don’t understand exactly.” 

“ There ’s one way I was thinking about. I 
mean, — if you should tell God about him.” 
“Oh! ” 

The quiet eyes looked at Gypsy, and Gypsy 
looked at them. Perhaps for an instant Peace 
was almost sorry that she had said what she 
had, — a little uncertain how Gypsy was going 
to take it. But the quiet eyes showed nothing 
of this ; they held Gypsy’s fast by their stillness 
and their pureness, and did for her what they 
always did. 

“ Peace Maythorne,” — after a pause, — “I 


250 


should like to know what made you think of 
saying that to me ! ” 

“ Oh, I don’t know. I was only wondering, 
and thinking; nothing seems of very much use 
without it ! ” 

Gypsy swung her hat round by the strings, 
and tapped the floor with one foot. 

“ Well, I suppose I have n’t, exactly, — no. 
I say Our Father every day — ’most; only 
sometimes I ’m sleepy. I say something about 
Tom once in a while, but I never supposed it 
was going to make any difference. Besides, I ’m 
so wicked and horrid.” 

Peace made no answer. 

“ Now I suppose you mean, here I ’ve been 
doing and worrying for Tom all this time, and 
it is all of no account, then?” 

“Oh, no; it is of a great deal of account. 
Only if you see a man drowning, and throw 
him out planks and branches and straws and 
shavings, and there is a boat there you could 
have just as well as not? ” 

“ Hum,” said Gypsy; “ yes, I see.” 


251 


There was a silence. Peace broke it 

“ I expect I ’ve bothered you with my sober 
talk. But I thought — I did n’t know as I 
should have another chance.” 

“ Another chance ! ” echoed Gypsy, mysti- 
fied. Peace turned her head over with a sud- 
den motion, and did not answer. 

“ Peace, what did you mean?” Alarmed at 
the silence, Gypsy climbed up on the bed to see 
what was the matter. 

They had talked too long, and Peace had 
fainted away. 

“ She has these turns pretty nigh ’most 
every day now,” said Aunt Jane, coming in 
and emptying half the water-pitcher upon her 
moveless face, — not roughly, but very much 
as she would gather a skirt or cut button-holes ; 
as if it were part of the business of life, and 
life meant business, and love was a duty, — a 
crippled orphan or a shirt-bosom, it was all the 
same. 


252 




(THE VOICE UPON THE SHORE' 
•CHAPTER*/®* ® 


/^vNE night, not long after that talk with 
Peace, Gypsy had a dream. It was a 
strange dream. 

It seemed to be nearly two thousand years 
ago, and she was living, and Peace, and 
& Tom, and Winnie ; and their ‘ home was 
in Judea. Tom was a young rabbi, and 
Winnie, was in the Temple at Jerusalem, edu- 
cating, like Samuel, for the Priesthood ; her 
father and mother were buried in the Cave of 
Machpelah, and she and Peace were Jewish 
maidens, and lived in a little vine-covered house 


253 


by the banks of silver Kedron. It was a very 
pleasant house, though very small and simply 
furnished. From the door she could look over 
to Jerusalem, and see the sun light the towers 
of the Temple, and from the windows she could 
watch the hills, and the shadows on them, and 
the paths worn up : there was a certain awe 
about those paths ; she wondered in the dream 
who wore them, but she did not seem to 
know. 

The bed for Peace was drawn up by the win- 
dow, and Peace lay always (as she always had 
since Gypsy had known her) still upon the 
pillows, with folded hands. Tom used to carry 
her out into the air sometimes, and lay her 
down upon the grass beneath the palm-trees, 
and Gypsy would run and shout, and roam 
away over the brook and up the mountains, and 
Peace could never go, but lay under the palm- 
trees, weak and white, with wistful eyes. And 
once it chanced that they were together, she 
and Peace alone, on a long, smooth beach, with 
the blue waves of Galilee singing and sighing 


254 


up about their feet, and singing and sighing 
out to dash against the prows of boats from 
which bronzed fishermen were casting nets. 

Peace was lying upon the sands, and Gypsy 
had made her a pillow of sea-mosses, and the 
light was falling full upon her face, and resting 
in a line of gold upon the water. Peace was 
watching this line of gold, and Gypsy was 
braiding her hair into the plaits the Jewish 
maidens wore, and it chanced that neither 
heard the stepping of near feet upon the 
sand. 

As they sat there talking softly with each 
other, and looking off to the line of gold, and 
listening to the singing and the sighing of the 
waves, a sudden light fell on them, and One 
stood there smiling, and took the hand of 
Peace, and spoke to her. The words He said 
were few and strange : “ Maiden, I say unto 
thee, arise.” 

Gypsy, hearing, turned in wonder to see who 
it could be that was mocking the helplessness 
of Peace; but He had gone. And standing 


255 


where He had stood was Peace, upright, erect, 
and strong, with colour in her cheeks and 
brightness in her eyes, — free to walk, to run, 
to leap, like happy Gypsy, all her crippled 
years forgotten like a dream gone by. 

“ Oh, Peace ! ” said Gypsy, in the dream, 
“ Oh, Peace, I am so glad ! ” and springing 
forward, tried to throw her arms around her 
neck. “ I must go,” said Peace, “ to thank 
Him,” and glided out of Gypsy’s clinging arms, 
and turned her face towards Galilee, and van- 
ished in the line of gold, and there was nothing 
left but the sighing of the waves upon the 
shore, and Gypsy sat alone. 

She woke with a start. The room was dark 
and the house was still. Far up the street a 
distant sound was drawing near. As she lay 
listening to it, it grew into the clatter of horses’ 
hoofs. They drew nearer and louder, and 
rattled up and rattled by; they had a sharp, 
hurried sound, as if they were on an errand of 
life and death. She jumped out of bed, went 
to the window, and looked out. In the faint 

256 


moonlight she caught a glimpse of the doctor’s 
carriage. 

“What a queer dream,” she thought, going 
back to bed, “ and how pretty ! I suppose it is 
because I have been down to see Peace so much 
lately, and then I was reading mother that 
chapter to-night about the lame man. I ’ll tell 
it to Peace to-morrow, and — and — ” 

She was asleep again by that time. 

To-morrow came, and Gypsy woke early. It 
was a rare morning. The winds, sweeping up 
over beds of late summer violets, and nooks 
where the bells of the Solomon’s seal were 
hanging thickly, and shadowy places under 
pines where anemones, white and purple and 
crimson, clustered with drooping heads, were 
as sweet as winds could be. There was not a 
cloud in the sky, and in the sunshine there was 
a sort of hush, Gypsy thought, like the sun- 
shine on Sunday mornings. She remembered 
afterwards having stood at the window and 
wondered how many happy things were going 
to happen all over the world that day, and if 


7 


257 


any sorrowful things could happen, and how sor- 
rowful things could ever happen on such days. 

Before she was dressed she heard the door- 
bell ring, wondered who it was so early, and 
forgot all about it in tying a new green ribbon 
— a beautiful shade, just like the greens of the 
apple-trees — upon her hair. Before she had 
finished twisting and pulling the pretty bow 
upon the side (Gypsy always made pretty 
bows), Winnie came stamping in, and said 
that there had been “ a funny little Irish girl, 
with a flat nose and two teeth, down ringin’ the 
door-bell, and now mother just wanted to see 
Gypsy Breynton in her room.” 

Gypsy gave a last look in the glass, and 
went, still fingering the ribbon. She could 
never look at that pretty green ribbon after- 
wards without a shiver; for a long time she 
did not want to wear green ribbons at all. The 
least little things are so linked with the great 
ones of our life. 

Her mother was still in bed, — she seldom 
rose now till after breakfast, — and Gypsy, 
. 258 







going in, saw that she looked startled and 
pale. 

“ Gypsy, shut the door a minute, and come 
here.” 

Gypsy shut it, and came, wondering. 

“ Miss Jane Maythorne has just sent up a 
message.” 

“ A message ! ” 

“ For you ; from Peace. She wants you. 
Gypsy, my child, she is — ” 

Gypsy paled, flushed, paled again, caught 
her mother’s hand with a queer idea to stop the 
words that she was going to say, — not to hear 

them, not to know them. 

“ They sent for the doctor at midnight,” said 
Mrs, Breynton, softly kissing the little appeal- 
ing hand. “ They thought that she was dying 

then. He says she cannot live till night.” 

It was said now. Gypsy drew a long breath, 
kissed her mother, put on her things, and 
went out into the hushing sunlight. Ah, how 
changed it all was now; how bleak, and thin, 
and white it seemed ; Gypsy noticed, as she 


261 


ran along, a huge white rock on which it lay 
thickly, — it made her think of a tombstone. 
The leaves of the silver aspens, fluttering in 
the wind, reminded her of grave-clothes. In 
the shadows that fell and floated under the 
trees, she seemed to see the face of Peace, 
lying with closed eyes, and motionless. She 
ran fast and faster, to escape the horrible, 
haunting pictures, but they chased her and fol- 
lowed her into the narrow streets, and went 
with her up the dark, hot stairway. At the 
door of the room she stopped. A strange 
dread came over her. She had never seen any 
one die, and for a moment she forgot that it 
was Peace, and that Peace wanted her, in the 
horror of the thought, and lingered, without 
courage to go in. 

While she stood there, one of the neighbours 
opened the door and came out crying. Gypsy 
caught a glimpse of Peace, and slipped in, and 
all her fear was gone. 

The doctor was there, dropping medicine at 
a little table by the window. Aunt Jane was 


262 



there, fanning Peace gently, her stern face 
softened and shocked. Peace was lying with 
her hands folded, her face turned over on the 
pillow in the old way, her eyes closed. The 
Sabbath-like sunlight was falling in as it always 


262 


fell into that room, — turning its bare floor 
and poor furnishing to gold, painting the 
patchwork quilt in strange patterns of light 
and shade, like some old tapestry, glorifying 
the face of Peace where it fell around and 
upon it. Gypsy, as she came in, had a fancy 
that it must look something like the faces of 
pictured saints framed in dusky niches of old 
cathedrals across the sea, — she had heard her 
mother tell about them. 

Peace did not hear her come in, and Gypsy 
had knelt down on the floor beside the bed, right 
in the light, which struck out sharply the con- 
trast between the two, before she knew that 
she was there. She opened her eyes suddenly 
and saw her. 

“ Oh — why, Gypsy ! ” 

Gypsy put up her hand, and Peace took hold 
of it. 

“ I ’m so glad you *ve come,” she said, in her 
quiet voice, with the old quiet smile. And 
Gypsy said not a word for wonder. How 
could anybody smile who was going to die? 


264 


“ Would it trouble you too much to stay a 
little while?” asked Peace, forgetting herself, 
remembering how to think for the comfort of 
others to the very last, as only Peace could do. 

“Trouble me! Oh, Peace! do you think 
I could go away?” 

“ I want to talk a little,” whispered Peace ; 
“ not now, — I can’t now. Perhaps I shall 
get a little breath by and by.” 

She said no more after that for a long time, 
and Gypsy knelt upon the floor, and held her 
hand, and watched her suffer, and could not 
help her, could not bear it for her, could only 
look on and break her heart in looking. 

How much Peace suffered, probably none of 
them knew. In her death as in her life, she 
made no complaint, uttered no cry of pain. 
Only once she called the doctor and said : — 

“ If you could give me something ! It 
seems as if I had borne as much as I can." 

For weeks after, the pitiful, appealing words 
used to ring in Gypsy’s ears at night when she 
was alone. 

265 


They gave her laudanum and she slept, and 
woke to lie in waking stupors, and slept again. 
The neighbours — rough-faced women in rags — 
came in, through the morning, to look their last 
at her, and go out crying. “ God bless her,” 
they said, “ the swate craythur ! — - she always 
’ud lay so patient-like, there in the sunshine, 
an’ hear about a body’s throubles, whin the 
childer was sick an’ the man was took to drink, 
an’ sech a way of smilin’ as she had, the Houly 
Mither rest her soul ! ” “ It ’s greeting sair I 

shall be for her,” said one pale Scotchwoman, 
“ greeting sae sair.” The children — all the 
little, freckled, frowzy, dirty children that Peace 
always would find something beautiful about — 
came in to say good-bye and go out wondering 
who would tell them stories now. Mrs. Breyn- 
ton came down at noon, and stayed till her 
strength gave out, but long enough to see Peace 
look up conscious and smiling, and to under- 
stand the thanks which she could not speak. 
Aunt Jane sat by the bed, and moved gently 
about the room, and did what was to be done, 


266 



still with that shocked, softened look upon her 
face, and Gypsy, watching her, wondered. 

The doctor left, and went to other patients. 
Peace passed from the stupor to sleep, and 


267 


from sleep to stupor, and the day wore on, but 
Gypsy never left her. 

She had no fear now of this mysterious 
presence which was coming; she did not dread 
to look upon it. The light that, sliding from 
window to window, still flooded the bed, made 
the face of Peace, even then, less like the face 
of death than like the pictured saint. 

As Gypsy knelt there on the floor through 
the long hours, awed and still, watching for 
Peace to waken, she did not wonder any more 
that Peace could smile when she was going 
to die. 

Her dream of the night came back to her 
suddenly. She saw again, as vividly as if she 
had lived it through, the warm waves of Galilee, 
the line of gold ; she heard the voice upon the 
shore, and saw the Figure with its hand up- 
raised. And suddenly it came to her what 
dying meant to Peace, — all the freedom and 
the strength and the rest from pain. 

The thought was in her heart when Peace 
awoke at last, conscious and quiet. It was at 


268 


the end of the afternoon, and the light was 
stealing into the west. They were all gone 
now but Aunt Jane and herself. 

“ Peace,” said her aunt, gently, “ Peace, 
dear.” 

But Peace, in her joy at seeing Gypsy there, 
saw nothing and heard nothing besides. Aunt 
Jane shrank back; she deserved it, and she 
knew it, but it was a little hard, now when she 
might — who knows? — have asked in death 
forgiveness for that which she had done and 
left undone to make life bitter. 

“ Gypsy, you here yet? Oh, I am very glad.” 

Gypsy cfept up on the bed. 

“ Right here, close by you, Peace.” 

“ I want to tell you something, Gypsy ; I 
want to say you have been so good, — so good 
to me. And don’t you think I ’m going to forget 
it now, and don’t think I ’m going to forget you. 
Why, I shall thank Him for you one of the 
very first things.” 

At the voice and at the words, Gypsy’s cour- 
age gave way. 

269 


“ Oh, Peace ! oh, Peace ! what shall I do 
without you? What shall I do ?” and could 
say no more for sobbing, and Peace took her 
clinging hand and drew it up beside her cheek, 
and so they lay and said no word ; and the 
stealing light gathered itself upon the hills, and 
the night came on. 

All at once Peace turned, and took away her 
hand, and pointed at the wall. 

“ See, Gypsy, — why, see ! ” 

Gypsy looked up. Upon the wall, close by 
the bed, the illuminated text was hanging that 
had been her Christmas gift to Peace over a year 
ago. Flashes of crimson thrown from the 
west hung trembling over it and framed in 
and transfigured the blue and golden words: 

“ &nb tj )t inhabitant shall not sag E am sick.” 

“ Oh, Gypsy, Gypsy, how nice it will be ! ” 

“Yes, dear,” and Gypsy stopped her sobbing. 

“To walk about, and run, and not have any 
pain, — why, think of not having any pain, 
Gypsy ! ” 


270 


“Yes, dear.” 

“ Kiss me, Gypsy.” 

Gypsy kissed her, and the flush of crimson 
faded from the blue and golden words, and the 
twilight fell into its place. 

“ She ’s dropped into another nap,” said Aunt 
Jane, coming up, turning her stern face away 
so that Gypsy should not see, in the dark, the 
hot, fast-dropping tears. So they sat awhile in 
the dusk together, Aunt Jane moving the great 
white fan dimly to and fro on the other side of 
the bed, and Gypsy crouched among the pil- 
lows watching it, watching the face of Peace, 
watching the blackness gather in the room. 

Presently the doctor came in. 

“ She may hold out till morning, after all, 
sir,” whispered Aunt Jane; “she’s having a 
long nap now. I hope she will last a little 
longer, for I *ve got something to say to her. I 
meant to say it, I meant to say it. I ’ll light 
the lamp, sir.” 

She lighted the lamp ; she went up to the 
bed, holding it and shading her eyes. 


271 


Then through the silence a cry “ tore up- 
wards ” like the cry of a stern heart breaking 
under that most pitiful of human pains, — a 
life-long, unavailing regret. 

But the lamplight fell upon the wall, and fell 
upon the blue and golden words, and Gypsy 
saw them, and saw them only. 


272 




E all of us, if we live long enough, find 


our saint. You do not understand what 
I mean? Well, perhaps you will some day. 

Gypsy, young as she was,- had found hers. 

She had loved Peace Maythorne with all her 
heart. And now that she was gone, she loved 
her more than ever. The beautiful, sorrowful 
life, and beautiful, happy dying, followed her 
like watching angels ; the patient face, with its 
pale gold hair and quiet eyes and the smile 
upon its lips, hung, like those pictured faces in 
the old cathedrals to which she had likened it, 
in a very quiet, shaded corner of her heart, — 

18 273 


a corner where noisy Gypsy, and rude Gypsy, 
and angry, or selfish, or blundering Gypsy 
never came. It looked at her Mondays and 
Tuesdays and Wednesdays when “ the days 
were rough,” and lessons were long, and pa- 
tience was short. It smiled at her in the Sab- 
bath twilights when her thoughts grew “ sorry ” 
and sober. It turned upon her when she was 
alone at night, when the tears fell and stars 
peeped in at her window that were looking 
down on Tom miles away by the Southern 
rivers, in camp, in battle, in prison, or — for 
who could tell? — in some grave dug quickly in 
the sands and left alone. And in this, where 
the pictured face had always been most help and 
comfort to her, it was most help and comfort 
now. She could not forget how Peace had 
sorrowed for her, had cried with her, had kissed 
her when she talked of Tom, nor what she had 
advised for him, nor what she had hoped for 
him. And one thing that Peace had said in 
that very last talk she could not forget, and she 
did not try. 


274 


You think that I am talking poetry, and 
you wonder what saints and cathedral pictures 
have to do with merry Gypsy? Wait till some 
one very dear to you passes out of life, and you 
will wonder no longer. You will see how the 
little bare room, — very empty and cold it used 
to seem, and the sunlight lonely, — the painful 
bed which Peace had left vacant and silent and 
smooth, the very roads that had led so long to 
her poor home, and the still spot behind the 
church where she was lying, became sacred 
places to Gypsy. You will see how in all her 
temptations and troubles and hopes and fears, 
Peace became more help to her dead than she 
had been living. 

“ I miss her ; oh, I do miss her l ” she wrote 
to Tom; “ and now mother is sick, and I can’t 
keep going to her as I used to, and there is 
nothing left of Peace but that grave over there 
(mother’s given me some tea-roses to plant on 
it), it does seem as if there weren’t anybody to 
stop me when I get ugly and cross and wicked. 
But then, Tom, if you ’ll believe it, 1 don’t cry 


275 


very much about her. I can't. To think of 
her up there walking round, — for mother says 
she does walk round, — and to think about that 
pain, and Aunt Jane, and how she is rid of it 
forever and ever and ever, — why, it just seems 
as if I ought to be glad of it. Now, Tom 
Breynton, don’t you tell, will you? but I should 
like to know what she is doing in these days. 
I do hope she is n’t singing psalm-tunes all this 
time ; but then the hymn-books say so, and I 
suppose of course they must be true, — o — I 
was going to say ‘ old things ! * but I guess that 
was wicked, so I won’t.” 

Troubles never will come single, and while 
thoughts of Peace were yet very fresh in Gyp- 
sy’s heart, there came startling news from Tom. 

It came on a rainy day. It was a dreary 
rain ; the streets were muddy, the trees were 
dripping, the grass was drenched, the skies were 
lead. Gypsy came home early from school, 
exchanged her rubber-boots and waterproof for 
dry clothes, and sat down by the parlour window 
to string some beads. 


“ I ’ll help you,” said Winnie, magnani- 
mously; “I can just as well as not.” 

Gypsy politely declined his offer. 

“ If you don’t let me, I ’ll just stamp and — ” 

“ Six red — two white — one, two, three — 
Oh, Winnie ! ” 

“ Squeal and holler and — ” 

“ Do, — and wake up mother.” 

“ Frow some water at you,” finished Winnie, 
with superb superiority ; “ frow some water out 
the tin dipper, with a little ’larsis in it I put in 
to look at ; no, I did n’t drink it either, I only 
put it in to look at, and some sugar too, and a 
little vinegar and pepper and, — well, I ’m going 
to frow it at you, anyway, and you won’t know 
anything about it, you see. Now going to give 
me those old beads? ” 

“ Why, there ’s the door-bell ! Run, Winnie, 
like a good boy ! ” 

Winnie stamped to the door, and came back 
with an envelope in his hand, and said that there 
was a man who wanted seventy-five cents. 

“ Why ! ” said Gypsy, wondering. “ A tel- 


277 



egram ! Run up and tell mother, — no, on the 
whole, I won’t wake her; I have her purse in 
my pocket.” 

She paid the messenger and sent him off, and 
went to the foot of the stairs and stood still 
with the envelope in her hand. 


278 


“ Perhaps I had better open it,” she said, 
half to herself, half to Winnie, dreading to do 
so, she knew not why, — dreading, too, to go 
to her mother. “ If there should be anything 
bad, — and father is at the store, — perhaps it 
would make her worse to read it herself. I 
wonder what it can be ! ” 

“ Why don’t you open it, then? ” said curious 
Winnie, peering through the banisters. 

“I — can’t, somehow,” said Gypsy, and stood 
still and looked at it. Then she tore it open 
and read, - — names, dates, blurring before her 
eyes, — a few words only, awfully distinct : — 

“ Your son was wounded in the shoulder this 
morning ; may not live through the day.” 

They had told his mother somehow, they 
never knew exactly how. She had not fainted 
nor shed tears. She had sunk down weakly 
on the bed and closed her eyes, and said one 
thing only, over and over : — 

“ And I cannot go to him ; cannot go to 
him ! ” 


279 


In all the shock and horror, that was the 
sting. Her slowly-gaining strength was not yet 
enough; the journey would be death to her. 
Tom could not see her, could not feel her last 
kiss on his lips, must die without his mother. 

“You must go, Gypsy; you must tell him — 
Oh, Gypsy, how can I, can I bear it?” 

“ Oh, mother, mother ! — poor mother ! ” 

And Gypsy forgot all about herself, and drew 
her mother’s face into her arms, and all the 
rest went out, and the two lay down upon the 
pillows and sobbed and moaned together. 

Yes, Gypsy must go. She had a dim con- 
sciousness, as she hurried about to get ready, 
of saying “ Thank you ” to some one that she 
could go. 

“ I never thought about saying my prayers 
for ever so long after that,” she said afterwards ; 
“ but it was so queer how I kept saying ‘ Thank 
you,’ just as if I could n’t help it. It would 
have been so terrible not to see him again.” 

It was strange work, this making ready. 
The house looked odd, and dark, and unfa- 


280 


miliar. Winnie, poor little fellow, only half 
able to understand what was going on, went 
off into a corner and had a frolic with the 
kitty. Gypsy looked on and wondered how 
he could laugh — how any- 
body could laugh, — how 
she had ever laughed or 
could ever laugh again. 
She wondered, too, that 
she did not forget things 
in her prepara- 
tions for the 
journey. But 



she forgot nothing. She packed her bag and 
her father’s carefully; she stopped to think 
to put up her cologne-bottle, — wondering if 
it might not come in use for Tom, — to stick 
into the corners a roll or two of old soft linen, 
a sponge, and a little flask of brandy. She 


281 


had an idea that he would not be properly 
taken care of at the hospitals, and that she had 
better, at any rate, have these things with her. 
There were some ripe, fresh oranges on the 
pantry shelf. She took them up, but dropped 
them suddenly, and sat down with a sick faint- 
ness creeping all over her. Perhaps Tom would 
never eat again. 

He had been carried, just after the fight, — 
a mere skirmish they saw by the evening 
papers, — to one of the Washington hospitals; 
that they found out from the despatch, which 
poor Gypsy, in the blindness and bewilderment 
of bearing the sight of it first, and bearing it 
all alone, and knowing that all the rest must 
hear of it from her, had only partially read. 
The army were on the march, her father said, 
their camp hospitals probably broken up ; he 
was glad that they had sent Tom to Washing- 
ton ; he could receive better care ; there was 
more chance — There he broke off, and pulled 
his hat over his eyes, and Gypsy waited in vain 
for the rest of the sentence. 


282 









The night train to Washington carried them 
both, sitting side by side, looking now and then 
into each other’s faces, but saying scarcely 
a word. Neither wanted to talk. There was 
nothing to say. And that was worst of all. 
If there had been anything to do but bear! 

Gypsy sat by the window. She could not 
sleep, and so she leaned her forehead on the 
glass and looked out. She had never travelled 
in the night before, and the strangeness of it 
fitted her terrible errand. She watched the 
blackness that lay thickly beyond the window, 
in the shade of forest and tunnel, and the dead 
outlines — blackness cut in blackness — of trees 
and fences, houses, spires, hill-tops, streams 
and flats and bridges whirling by, and the 
poles of the telegraph lines rising like thin, 
sharp fingers against the sky, and the sparks 
from the engine shooting past. The rattling 
of the axle over which she sat; the sick sway- 
ing of the train from side to side as they flew 
up and over and down the terrible mountains 
at the rate of forty miles an hour; the dull 


285 


pattering of the storm upon the windows 
heard through all the clash and roar; the long, 
loud, human shriek of the locomotive as they 
rushed through sleeping villages in the twink- 
ling of an eye; the sudden flare of cities and 
lighted depots, where the monster was reined 
up panting; the groups upon the platforms, — 
single faces in them, here a soldier, there 
a pale woman in mourning, now a girl cling- 
ing to her brother’s arm, a brother with 
merry eyes and hair like Tom’s ; once a cluster 
of men in blue uniform, bearing a long white 
box upon their shoulders, — all these things 
Gypsy saw, and heard, and felt ; yet of no one 
was she distinctly conscious; they all blended 
into one thought, one picture, one dream of 
Tom. 

Sometimes she seemed to see him in battle, 
his bright, brave face flushed and eager and 
beautiful, his hair blown by the wind, his keen 
eye taking aim. Then she would hear — hear 
above all the din of the train and storm — the 
report of a pistol, a cry, a groan, see his arms 


286 


thrown up, see him fall and lie still in the 
blood and horror. After that it would be the 
slow journey from the front to the Capital, the 
painful ambulance jolting and jarring, the face 
within it, — Ah, Tom would be too brave to 
cry out. Then the hospital, the long rows of 
beds and his among them, the surgeons’ faces, 
the nurses, — strangers, all strangers ; not one 
familiar look or smile or touch; nobody there 
to kiss him ; none to whom he was dear. And 
then there was one picture more, — one that 
swept over all the rest and blackened them out 
of sight ; one that grew sharper and plainer as 
the train shrieked on and the night wore on 
with it. Tom lying still, very still; his eyes 
closed, his hands folded, herself and her father 
looking dumbly on, — too late. 

Gypsy thought that the train crept, crawled, 
dragged, upon its way. Sometimes it seemed 
to her as if she must spring up and shriek with 
the horror of her thoughts. Sometimes as if 
she must cry out to her father, and throw her 
arms around his neck, and sob upon his shoul- 


287 


der. But when she saw his face rigid and 
white as he sat beside her with his eyes closed 
and his head laid back, she determined not to 
add her pain to his, but to bear it alone, and 
bear it like a woman; and she did. 

That was a horrible night. Perhaps it is not 
very often — I hope not — that a child of 
Gypsy’s years has such to live through. Anx- 
iety and danger and death come everywhere, 
and many brave young brothers have gone, as 
Tom went, out of happy homes into which they 
never came back. But brothers are different, 
and sisters; and all are not what Gypsy and 
Tom were to each other. 

But there was one pleasant thing about the 
night, — one quiet, restful thing, that Gypsy 
used afterwards to remember thankfully. 

At one of the large towns where the express 
stopped for a moment there was a little bustle 
at the end of the car, and two men came in 
carrying a crippled girl. There was not room 
enough for her, and they passed on into the 
next car, and Gypsy saw no more of her. But 


288 


she had caught a glimpse of her white face and 
shrunken shoulders as they carried her through, 
and it took her quick thoughts back to Peace 
Maythorne, and that was the pleasant thing. 
For she remembered that Peace had said : 

“ If you see a man drowning, and throw him 
out planks and branches and straws, and there 
is a boat you could have just as well as not? ” 
And the hot tears came for sorrow and 
wonder that she could have forgotten to pray 
for Tom ; that all this long night had been 
wasted in branches and planks and straws, — in 
fruitless fears and useless grief and dreaming; 
and the only thing that could help him, — why, 
how could she forget? 

So, with the pictured face of Peace smiling 
in that silent corner of her heart, she told God 
all the story, — all that she feared, all that she 
hoped, all that she thought she could not bear. 
He loved her. He loved Tom. He would do 
right. She seemed to feel that, after a while, 
and with the thought in her heart she went 
quietly to sleep. 


19 


289 


Who shall say what that thought and that 
prayer had to do with what came afterwards ? 

So the night passed, and the morning came, 
and the garish sunshine, and the burning day, 
and the sick faintness of the long journey. 

They had travelled as fast as steam could 
take them, and when the next night settled 
down they were in Washington. 

Gypsy looked out from the carriage window 
on the twinkling lights and heavy shadows of 
the city, and thought of that other journey to 
Washington which she had taken with her 
cousin Joy; thought of it with a curious sort 
of wonder that she could ever have been as 
happy as she was then ; that Tom could have 
been at home, safe and well, waiting to kiss 
her when she came, to take her in his strong 
arms, to look down into her face with his own 
bright brown eyes, and pinch her cheek, and 
say how he had missed her. 

Oh, if the bright brown eyes should never 
look at her any more ! If he should never miss 
her, never wait for her again ! 


290 


The carriage stopped suddenly. They were 
at the foot of the hospital steps. There were 
many lights in the windows, and some men 
gathered about the door. 

Gypsy caught her father’s hand and held it 
tightly. 

“ Father,” — in a sort of terror, — “ don’t 
let ’s go in yet. Wait a minute. I can’t bear 
to — know.” 

But the driver had the door open then, and 
somebody lifted her out, and she found herself 
climbing the steps, clinging to her father, and 
trying not to think. 

They went in. Mr. Breynton dropped her 
hand for a moment, and called a man who was 
standing in the hall, and said something to him 
in a whisper. 

“ Breynton, Breynton ! ” said the man aloud, 
“ let me see ; think I remember the name. 
Jack, look here ! ” 

Jack came. 

“ Here’s a gentleman looking for Breynton — 


291 


Thomas Breynton. Know where they ’ve put 
him?” 

“ Ward 3, sir, yes — if — ” 

Gypsy half caught the words, — “ if he ’s 
held out till now ; don’t know about that. This 
way, sir; bed No. 2, in the corner, — this 
way.” 

The steward walked on with rapid, business- 
like strides. Through a bewilderment of light, 
of moving figures, of pallet beds, of pale faces 
on them, Gypsy followed him, catching at her 
father’s hand. 

They reached the corner. They reached the 
bed. They stopped. 

It was empty. 



YPSY did not say a word. Some of the 
soldiers said afterwards that they could 
see her fingers griping on her father’s arm in 
an odd way, as if she were trying to talk with 
them. But she never remembered it, nor did he. 

So it was all over. They had come too late. 
Tom was beyond reach of her kisses, beyond 
the look of her eyes ; he could never hear one 
word of hers again ; she could never say 
good-bye. 

The empty bed whirled round before her 
eyes; the room began to grow dark as if a 
thunder-cloud were sweeping over it. 


293 


She remembered sitting down upon the bed 
for the feeling to pass away ; and she remem- 
bered seeing her father stagger a little against 
the wall. But, strangely enough, the only 
thought she had was that she wished she 
could cry. 

“ My dear child,” said a voice behind her. 
A hand was laid on her shoulder then, — a 
very gentle hand, — and she turned her head. 
A sweet-faced lady in mourning stood there, 
and Gypsy thought that it must be the nurse. 

“ My child, there is a mistake.” 

“ What?" 

“They made a mistake; he is not dead.” 

“ Is not dead? ” 

“ And is n’t going to die. He was moved 
into another ward this morning, and is getting 
well, dear, as fast as he possibly can. Yes, I 
mean just what I say; don’t look so frightened. 
That is his father? This way, sir. Come right 
along, and you shall see him. He has been 
having such a nice nap. The surgeon says 
it is wonderful how fast he is getting up. Right 


294 


















through this door — there ! look over by the 
window.” 

They looked. So weak, so white, so brave, 
so smiling, so beauti- 
ful, — - who but Tom 
could have a face like 
that? 

And when he saw 
them coming in — well, 
well, I cannot tell you, 
and I shall not try, 
what he said or they. 

I very much doubt if 
they said anything; at 
least, if they did, no- 
body knew what it was, 
for the boys all looked 
the other way, and the 
sweet-faced nurse went off as fast as she 
could go. 

But I know as much as this, — that the first 
thing Gypsy knew very much about, she was 
sitting down on the bare floor, with her feet 


297 


crossed like a little Turk, and her face in the 
bed-clothes? But what could she possibly be 
doing with her face in the bed-clothes? 

“I’m sure I don’t know, Tom. Crying? 
Why, what on earth is there to cry about — 
Oh, dear!” — down went the head again — 
“just as if — you’d gone and died, and here 
you — didn’t! And here’s my hair all down 
my back, and how you always used to knock 
it down when you kissed me, Tom, always, and 
here we are talking you to death, and I sha’n’t 
say another word, and — did you ever see such 
a little goose ? ” 

It was many days before Tom was able to 
be about ; others still before he could go home. 
But Mrs. Breynton, as soon as she had the joyful 
telegram, sent back word to Gypsy to stay with 
him if the nurses would let her; that she was 
getting strong fast for joy, and did not need her. 

“ Would it bother you to have me, Tom? ” 

Tom looked ; and Gypsy stayed. 

The first morning that Tom was strong 


298 


enough to bear much talking, Mr. Breynton 
sent Gypsy away, nominally to get a walk and 
the air ; but the amount of it was that he had 
something to say to Tom, and she under- 
stood it. 



She never knew what it was, nor any one 
else. But she had her guess. For when she 
came back, her father’s eyes were moist, his 
nervous lip trembling, and into Tom’s voice 
and manner there had crept a certain tenderness 


299 


that was not always there. There was always 
more or less of it after that in his treatment 
of his father, and his mother and Gypsy used 
to look on rejoicing. If Mr. Breynton had 
erred in his management of his son, perhaps he 
was man enough to say so. That is no concern 
of Gypsy’s or of ours ; but this at least is sure, — 
in some way or other Tom had found out, and 
felt very penitent in finding out, how much he 
loved him ; and that, whether right or wrong in 
judgment, he cared far more for his children’s 
best good and happiness than for his own. 

One night, the day before they were to 
start for home, Tom had something to say to 
Gypsy. It was only a whisper, and there were 
only four words in it, but it was well worth 
hearing. 

He had been up and about the house, but 
being a little tired towards night, had lain down 
to get rested for to-morrow’s journey. Gypsy 
had crawled up on the edge of the narrow bed, 
and was brushing his hair for him, — very soft 
and smooth was Tom’s curly hair, and very 


300 


pretty work she thought it was to play with it, 
to toss it off from his forehead, to curl it about 
his ears, to make him look at himself in her 



tiny toilet glass, and call him a handsome fel- 
low, and stop him with a kiss when he began 
his usual answer : — 


301 


“ Why don’t you give a fellow some recent 
intelligence while you ’re about it? ” 

Their father was out, and the men were none 
of them near enough to hear conversation car- 
ried on in a low tone, so that the two were as 
if alone together. Tom had been lying with 
his eyes shut, and Gypsy had sat silent for 
a while, watching his face, — the sun struck 
through the western window and fell on it a 
little. Suddenly she spoke, half to herself it 
seemed : — 

“ I wonder if the boat had anything to do 
with it ! ” 

“ The boat ! ” 

“ Why, yes, — instead of the sticks and 
straws.” 

“ Gypsy, what are you talking about?” 

“ Oh, I was thinking about Peace, and 
something she said, and how I remembered it 
coming on in the cars. I wonder if she isn’t 
smiling away up there to see that you did n’t 
die. Anyway, you ’d better thank her for her 
part of it.” 


“ Her part of it? Gypsy, do talk Eng- 

lish ! ” 

But not a word would Gypsy say to explain 
herself. 

There was another silence, and Tom was the 
one to break that. 

“ Gypsy, look here ! father is good to a 
fellow, after all.” 

“ To be sure.” 

“ And he has told me I might do as I liked 
about going back ; he said what he wanted, but 
he would n’t have any command about it, for 
which I gave him three cheers.” 

“ Well? ” 

Gypsy waited and trembled for the answer. 

“ It will take six months to get this shoulder 
in working order,” said Tom, in a sort of a 
growl, half glad, half sorry, “ and how is a 
fellow going to fight with it? — be in the way 
if I stay.” 

“You’re not a bit tired of it, then?” asked 
Gypsy, trying not to let her eyes twinkle. 

“ Well, not — that is to say — exactly. 


303 


But when I ’m twenty-one, with a little more 
muscle for the marches, if the war holds out 
till then, I tell you I ’ll pitch in and see it 
out, and smash the Rebs, anyway, and come 
through Colonel, if I can’t get to Brigadier- 
General.” 

“ How nice that will be ! ” said Gypsy, who 
had not the slightest doubt that Tom could be 
Lieutenant-General if he chose. “ So then ” — 
and do her dignified best she could not keep 
the little scream of delight out of her voice — 
“ so then you ’re going home to stay.” 

“ Hum — I suppose so ; father has got me a 
discharge.” 

“ Because you ’re wounded? ” 

“Yes, and” — he hesitated; it was rather a 
bitter cup for proud Tom to drink, but he de- 
served it and he knew it — “and because — 
because ; well, I was under age, you know.” 
“Oh.” 

Gypsy twisted the bright brown curls about 
her fingers softly. 

“ So now you will be at home again all safe 


304 


and sound, and I sha’n’t have to cry any more 
nights thinking about your being shot, — kiss 
me, Tom.” 

“ There ! — well, you won’t have too much 
of a good thing. I ’m back to college next Sep- 
tember, to get that ‘ education ’ father is forever 
talking about.” 

“ Tom, you are an angel ! ” 

“ And, Gypsy, see here — ” 

Gypsy drew her fingers out of the twining 
curls, and laid her pretty pink ear to his lips 
to hear his whisper. 

“ Fm going to behave .” 


3 ot i 


20 



/ T^OM always kept his promises. 

And one day, a long time after that, when 
Gypsy was quite a young lady, and after her 
year at the Golden Crescent, which it will take 
another book to tell you about, in a certain 
church at New Haven there was a great audience 
gathered. It was a gem of a day, with the April 
sun flitting in and out of little clouds that 
broke into little showers that did nobody any 
harm, and people flocked in like bees to a 
clover-field on a summer morning. There was to 
be fine speaking, it was said. The orations as a 
whole did honour to the class, but there was one 
which was expected to attract particular atten- 


306 


tion. The young man — “so very young, and 
so handsome ! ” was buzzed around among the 
schoolgirls — was one of the finest declaimers 
in college. There were already murmurs of the 
DeForest when he should become a senior. 

How smiling and flushed in the face, and 
warm, and packed, and crammed, and uncom- 
fortable, and happy, the audience looked ! 
What a quantity of old ladies with poke 
bonnets and palm-leaf fans, and of pretty 
schoolgirls with their waterfalls, and whirl- 
pools, and necklaces, and ribbons, and streamers, 
and red cheeks, and simpers ! How many 
placid papas in spectacles, and anxious 
mammas with little front curls, and mature 
brothers sitting among the Alumni, and proud 
young sisters with expectant eyes, — all watch- 
ing the stage and waiting, and wondering how 
long it would be before Dick and Harry and 
Will would speak, and hoping that he would 
not have to be prompted, and not caring a 
straw for all the rest ! 

It was a merry sight. 


307 


Among the placid papas and anxious mam- 
mas and expectant sisters was clustered one 
group that we know. Mr. Breynton was there, 
by no means placid> but as nervous and as 
happy as he could be, afraid one minute that 
the boy had not committed his piece thor- 
oughly, and sure the next that it was some- 
thing — something, certainly, to have such a 
son. Mrs. Breynton was there, looking as 
well as ever, as calm as a moonbeam, but with 
something in her gentle eyes that any son 
would like to see turned on him. And Winnie 
was there in a new jacket resplendent in new 
steel buttons, which he was jerking off as fast 
as he possibly could, by jumping up and sit- 
ting down every two minutes by the clock, 
sticking up his little fat chin on the top of the 
next slip, and looking round with his mouth 
open to see “ why Tom did n’t come and preach, 
too, — old fellow ! ” And there was Gypsy, a 
little older, with long dresses and kid gloves, 
and her jaunty hats replaced by a stylish little 
bonnet all rosebuds and moss (between you 


308 


and me it was made on purpose for Tom’s 
exhibition, and she made it herself, too), a 
little prettier, perhaps, a little more demure, 
but with the old dimples in her cheeks, and 
the old mischief in her eyes, — in short, she 
was still, what she probably will be all her life, 
just Gypsy and nobody else. But, take her 
altogether, she was a very pleasant sight to 
look upon, and of all the pretty, proud little 
sisters in the hall, Tom thought that none 
looked prettier or prouder, and I do not know 
as anybody blamed him. And when, after a 
certain number of other Toms had said what 
they had to say, to the entire satisfaction of 
certain other sisters and mothers, and Tom 
came out upon the stage as carelessly and 
easily as he might walk into the parlour at 
home, looking as cool and collected and tall 
and handsome and manly as even Tom could 
look, and there was a buzz all over the house, 
and then a silence, and Gypsy heard whispers 
going around behind her : “ That ’s the one. 

That ’s he — buzz, buzz. One of the finest 

3°9 


declaimers — buzz. DeForest — yes, buzz, 
buzz, buzz,” — well, I fancy that there will be 
few times in her life in which she will be much 
happier. 

And when Tom began, and the house grew 
still, and he went on, and it grew stiller, and he 
saw, out of all the crowd, her eager, upturned 
face, with its parted lips and proud young 
eyes, I am inclined to think that he was glad 
he had “ behaved.” 

I cannot tell you the exact subject of his 
oration, but Gypsy says it was something about 
Genius and Liberty, and a little about the 
Future, and that she believes there was some- 
thing about Life’s Morning, but she could not 
understand it to save her — Tom did know so 
much ! Besides, she was thinking how his 
moustache had grown. 

I suppose Tom’s oration was like all other 
college orations, and that he was just like any 
other boy who had something to say and knew 
how to say it; but when he came to the end, 
there was a long hush, and then a long burst 
of applause, and Gypsy was perfectly sure that 

310 


there never was such a hush or such applause 
in Yale College before, and perfectly sure that 
Tom was especially destined by Providence to 
fill the place of Mr. Edward Everett, and per- 
fectly sure that there was nobody like him in 
all the world. His father was delighted, his 
mother content, and Tom himself, trying to look 
very indifferent and very modest, was very glad 
that it was over. As for Winnie, he had ex- 
pressed his sentiments sufficiently when the 
oration was about half through. Tom, in the 
excitement of his delivery, in one of his choicest 
gestures, chanced to step very near the edge of 
the stage, — it did look rather uncertain, — and 
Winnie jumped up with a jerk, and was right out 
with it aloud before anybody could stop him : — 

“ Ow ! Look a-there, mother ! He ’ll tip 
over ! ” 

And Gypsy says that it was “ so remarkable ” 
that Tom kept his countenance, and went on 
as if nothing had happened, though there was a 
smile all over the house. 

That day was one long dream of delight to 
Gypsy. She was so proud of Tom, and Tom 


3 11 


was so handsome and kind. It was “ such 
fun ” to be introduced to his classmates as 
“ my sister,” and to see by the flash of his eyes 
that he was not exactly ashamed of her, in spite 
of her being “ a little goose that did hate Latin, 
and never could get her bonnets on straight like 
other girls.” And very pleasant was it, more- 
over, to have a word or two to say about “ my 
brother,” and to try not to look delighted when 
one of the professors who had been talking to 
her mother turned around and congratulated 
her on his success, and told her, in his dignified 
way, that her brother’s conduct at college had 
given great satisfaction to the Faculty. 

And very pleasant was it when the bustle and 
excitement of the day were over, when busy 
Tom stole fifteen minutes away from all his 
class engagements, and went out to walk with 
her by moonlight to show her the elms. On 
the whole, it was the best part of the day. For 
the light fell down without a cloud, and there 
was all the wonder and the glory of the long 
colonnades and netted arches of silver and shade, 
and the sky looking down — she stopped even 


312 


then to think — silent and glad like Peace May- 
thorne’s eyes; and then there was Tom’s face. 

“Oh, Tom, did you ever?” she began softly, 
patting his arm in her old way, as if he were a 
kitten. 

“ Did I ever what? ” 

“ Why, it is so nice ! And that professor 
said, you know, ‘ He — his conduct ’ — let me 
see, I ’m afraid I can’t get it straight.” 

“He’s done himself proud? Well, it’s little 
enough to anybody but you and mother and the 
rest. But it might have been less.” 

“And, Tom,” — half under her breath, — 
“just think of the days when we were so 
afraid, and I used to watch and worry, and to 
think I ever thought you could be like Francis 
Rowe, — why, to think ! ” 

“ Gypsy, look here ! ” 

Gypsy looked. Tom’s tone had changed 
suddenly, and his merry eyes were earnest and 

still. 

“ I ’m not the talking sort of fellow, and I 
can’t go on like the story-books, and say it all 
over about gratitude and the rest, but I know 
313 


this much, — I should not be where I am to-day 
if it were n’t for you.” 

“ Oh, Tom dear /” 

“No, I shouldn’t. If you hadn’t been so 
patient with a chap, and had such a way of 
keeping your temper and doing things, and if 
you had n’t had such great eyes, — well, I guess 
that will do ; thought I ’d let you know, — that ’s 
all.” 

Gypsy gave his arm a little squeeze, and 
pretty soon down went her face on it, — pink 
rosebuds and all, — and that was all the answer 
she had for him. 



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